ABC of Charlie Whumps
by FencingFilly
Summary: ABC of charlie either being injured or needing some sort of medical attention may have a few DON whumps too please be nice this is my first Numb3rs fic
1. ACL

**_these stories are meant to be all one story_****_, charlie isn't likely to have 26 different accidents or illnesses in such a short space of time, thus if details don't follow on between stories they aren't meant to, some will follow on but others are in a slightly different universe._**

**_Thanx to my beta turnipchick who did a wonderful job of turning my story from ok to well better than ok_**

**_please read and review_**

Chapter 1

"Professor Eppes can I ask you a favour?" asked one of the students who was in one of his classes but who was quite quiet and didn't answer very much.

"Sure what is it?" he replied

"Well we need another teacher for the teacher vs. student football game; it's for charity by the way. It's at 3:30, we had Professor Fleetwood but he has to go to Maine to pick up his daughter from school or something. So will you do it?"

"I haven't played football in ermmm a very long time, is there going to be a practice before the game or anything?" replied Charlie looking slight aghast at the prospect.

"No just the warm-up, all the practices have been over the last couple of weeks but don't worry it's just for fun and no-one is taking it seriously.

"Ok I'll do it"

The first 3 quarters past without much comments, the students were winning 32-21, Charlie was playing for some reason as Running back, but had been playing ok especially since the last time he had played had been in a similar type of game 10 years previous (apart from a family muck-a-about at thanksgiving, where Don's team always won). The play was called meaning the ¼ back was going to faint a run then pass it to Charlie, Charlie caught the ball and could see a giant of a player come hurdling towards him, he tried to dodge but the player dodged with him and landed on him still, pulling him to the ground. Pain erupted in Charlie's knee and he knew something wasn't right.

"Ok Sir, lie as still as possible while we get this leg immobilised, are you in any pain? Thanks Bella. We shall try to get you to the hospital ASAP." Said the paramedic who didn't allow Charlie to get a word in edge ways nor answer the questions which he asked.

But before Charlie could ask what was going on; he was on the way to the hospital his leg now strapped up and immobile, having had an injection of morphine to reduce any pain he might be feeling. He was a lot calmer about the whole thing. He was wheeled through the ER and placed in a cubicle.

Charlie sat there wondering whether he would ever see a doctor or whether he would have to sit by himself forever when there was a flutter in the curtain which had been drawn round his bed. It was not a doctor but Larry who looked very flustered.

"Charles in what possible variation of this universe gave you the idea that it would be a good idea to play football." Asked Larry

"Well I got asked and I could hardly say no, the guy cornered me. Could you call Don and tell him what has happened I need a lift home since in all probability I won't be allowed to drive." Reposted Charlie

As Larry left to phone Don, the long awaited doctor arrived.

"Don Eppes, FBI. What can I do for you?"

"Its Larry, well Charles had an accident, he's ok" he tried to reassure Don that Charlie was in fact not too badly hurt "We are at the hospital and the doctor is looking at Charlie now..."

"What kind of accident? Does he need me to come down?" asked Don trying to hide the anxiety in his voice

"He was playing football against some of the students in a charity game. Yeah he asked if you could pick him up and take him home." Replied Larry relaying the bare facts to Don.

"Tell him I will be there as soon as I can get away, it's a bit hectic around here just now but I'll try to get away soon.

Don walked through the hospital till he reached the ER (he had gone in the wrong entrance) he hated hospitals, his dad had once had to almost physically drag him to the hospital to get his broken wrist fixed after a little league accident also when Charlie had been in the hospital a couple of years ago after having a appendicitis he had said he was really sorry but was too busy to visit when really it was due to his phobia of hospitals. Don entered the cubicle just as the doctor began telling Charlie the results of the scans and x-rays.

"Don Eppes, I'm Charlie's brother." Announced Don

"As I was just telling Charlie, he has a tear of his ACL and a dislocated patella which unfortunately means he will be laid-up for about 11 weeks and I am prescribing full bed rest for the next 10 days as that knee is very swollen and we need that swelling to reduce and we don't want any further damage to be done."

"What do you mean 'full bed rest'" asked Charlie who was hoping it wasn't as bad as it sounded; he had work to do and things.

"Apart from the toilet and a couple of very short spells up and about possibly in conjunction with meals, either on a couch or in bed with your knee propped up. That means no work or anything else." Replied the doctor he could see Charlie's face drop, this looked as if it was going to be torture for the young professor.

"So do you want to see me again?" asked Charlie trying to sound more positive than he felt.

"Yes in 10 days I would like to review this and hopefully the swelling will have gone down and then you can get out and about though obviously you will still have to use crutches" replied the doctor.

"So will I need crutches just now or just once I come back."

"No, you will need crutches just now but they are to be used sparingly you have to rest that knee as much as possible. Do you have any more questions?"

"Are you going to relocate my knee now?" asked Charlie

"Yeah we'll give you some gas and air then put it back in" replied the doctor signalling for the nurse to bring the necessary items for the job.

Don could tell that the next 11 weeks and particularly the following 10 days were going to be very difficult, to get his exuberant brother to take it easy for a few minutes let alone nearly two months was going to be Nye on impossible. Charlie would already be thinking of ways to get around what he was suppose to be doing. Don could see the pain in Charlie's eyes and couldn't decide whether it was due to the pain of relocating his patella or whether it was due to the thought of 10 days laid-up instead of living his life.

**Chapter 2**

Charlie hobbled into the house having been very quiet on the way home, his knee which was now strapped up, resembled an elephant leg due to the amount of swelling and the colour of the bruising.

Alan, who had been making dinner, came out at the sound of the door opening and was startled to see Charlie being helped to the couch by his brother with what looked like a badly damaged knee.

"What happened, Charlie?"

"Football, Tank powered into me, torn ACL, dislocated patella," said Charlie neither wanted his dad to worry about him nor did he really want to explain what had happened. He was very tired and would much rather the whole situation wasn't happening to him.

"Ah, how long is it going to take to heal?"

"11 weeks the doctor said"

"Well, I am glad I made your favourite then, you look like you need some cheering up" he said trying to put a smile on his face and lighten the situation.

"So, Don you staying for Dinner then?"Charlie said more a request than a question.

"If you want buddy, I've got most of the work I needed done anyway." Said Don who followed his dad into the kitchen leaving Charlie sulking on the couch,

"What are we going to do to keep him occupied and resting that knee, he'll never last that long." Asked Don

"I know, he doesn't really have a hobby, I suppose we could get him a book of puzzles or could you get him the notes for your cases and he could do the equations for them at home.

"Yeah I suppose I could ask him if he can help us with the cases using his maths and tell him I'll pick them up when I come over for dinner. Me coming over is ok with you isn't it?"

"Of course you are always welcome. I'll phone Larry and Amita and get them to bring over any marking he needs to do. That will keep him busy for a bit as well." Replied Alan,

"Yeah I need to phone Amita anyway, to tell her about Charlie and ask her for the number for whoever is in-charge, of finding cover for Charlie's classes for the next 10 days."

"Yeah well _Plan Charlie Rest_ is a go, starting from tomorrow." Alan replied; while he served up the Dinner of Chilli Con Carne.

The first two days were ok and Charlie stayed where he was meant to be in bed with pages and pages of equations around him. He had managed to complete the entire _501 Puzzle Mania _book that Don had bought him and had set to work on the case which Don had given him at dinner the previous night. Charlie was finding (since he nothing else to do or distract him) the equation was quite easy to do, though it would have been better if he could have used his blackboards as he liked to "think on his feet" but he was trying to make the best of it.

On the morning of the third day, Alan had to go to his golf game (he had asked Charlie if he wanted him to stay but Charlie said it was fine). Charlie finished the last bit of the equation and decided that since Don wouldn't be able to collect it until tonight he would do him a favour and give it to his team so they could finish the case quicker. He phoned David as he had feeling that Don had said something about being away from the office today.

"Hey FBI Agent Sinclaire speaking, who is it?"

"Hey David, it is Charlie"

"Oh hey, how's your knee?"

"Getting better I hope, anyway is Don there?"

"No do you want me to give him a message?"

"No I was hoping he wasn't, I was going to bring that equation by for your case and I thought he would tell me to go home, I'll get a cab and I'll be there in 20 minutes hopefully."

"Charlie I thought Don said you were on ..." he stopped as he heard the dialling tone signalling Charlie had hung up and was unfortunately on his way. Don was going to have his head for this.

Charlie picked up his crutches found his shoes which were for some reason hidden in the cupboard under a pile of coats when he knew he had left them next to the door when he took them off 2 nights ago. He searched for a long time to find his keys which seemed to have mysteriously disappeared from their usual spot in the bowl next to the phone. He was now starting to wonder whether someone was deliberately hiding his stuff so he couldn't go out. He found everything having already wasted 20 minutes. He then noticed he was still wearing a faded Cal-Sci t-shirt and baggy pyjamas shorts and thought he would need to get changed before going to the FBI.

Now completely ready he phoned for a cab and was on his way, when he arrived at the FBI office he made his way to the lift it took a lot longer than usual and was glad that the lobby was not too busy so he didn't have to move to avoid people too much. He finally got up to the bull-pen 40 minutes later than he said he was going to be and was met by stares from all of Don's team. Colby brought him a chair over and helped Charlie to sit down.

"You do know Don is going to kill us if he finds out you've been here." Said Megan looking at Charlie with a mixture of pity and annoyance,

"That's why he isn't going to find out." Replied Charlie with his usual cheeky smile reaching into his backpack which was now sitting by his feet, retrieving the equation which he had perfected;

"Is that the equation?"

"Yeah, would you like me to explain my thinking?"

"Well you had better do it quickly Don could be back at any moment" replied David constantly looking over his shoulder to see whether his boss was about to appear around the corner.

Charlie explained his thinking and the equation which he had drawn up and told them that if they gave the specifics of time, date and contents of the robberies that he would get Amita to put them into her computer along with the equation and come up with some results for them. They told Charlie they would do that and motioned to him to get out of the office.

Charlie pressed the button for the lift and waited for the lift to reach his floor from the 2nd floor, Don had decided instead of taking the stairs today that he would take the elevator to his office as he had a lot of files to carry. He had been on the 2nd Floor giving files to one of the other offices from the meeting he had just come from and now was going up to his office. The lift doors opened and Charlie's cheeks turned bright scarlet as he saw who it was coming out of the lift.

"Charlie, what are you doing here?" asked Don fuming you could almost see the steam coming out of his ears.

"Erm, stretching my legs?" he said trying to sound sincere,

"We will talk about this at home; I am taking you home now." He said dumping the files on his desk then shooed Charlie into the lift and followed suit. He drove Charlie home in stony silence. Charlie got out the car and forgetting for a moment about his knee put his full weight through his injured leg crying out in pain. He hobbled with his crutches to the couch his knee now in more pain. His leg had been sorer when he had been at Don's office than when he had been at home "resting" maybe there was a reason for the bed rest.

Don could see from his brother's movements that he was in a lot of pain but he couldn't help but feel this might teach him to abide by the rules in this case anyway.

"Charlie what were you thinking?"

"That I could speed up the catching of this guy by giving you the equations quicker. I also was incredibly bored, daytime TV really sucks."

"Remind me again how long the doc said you were to rest for and how long it's been?"

"Ok Don I messed up, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have gone to your office."

Don got a flashback to when they were kids and Don had measles and Charlie was told by their dad to not have any contact with Don and then he wouldn't get sick. But Charlie didn't heed the warning and got the measles and got really sick and missed the science fair, which he had been looking forward to for weeks. Charlie had never been very good at doing what he was told and this was no exception, he just hoped that maybe he would for once take this as a learning experience and do the right thing for once.

"Do you want a soda before I leave?"

"No, I'm fine." Don turned to leave, "Wait, could you maybe drop by the movie rental place and pick me up a couple of movies on your way home, if I am going to be stuck here then I might as well have something to do."

"Yeah sure, I'll get you some baseball ones, very statistical game, I remember you saying."

Charlie gave a faint smirk of laughter as Don left, he knew Amita didn't have any classes for the rest of the day and thought maybe she could come over and he could always help her with something or maybe just talk. He had never told her that he loved her, when he had been her theses advisor them dating had been a big no-no but now well maybe that would be a good idea.

He leant over to get the phone and dialled her office number, after the 3rd ring she picked up.

"Hey, Can I ask you a favour?"

"Yeah sure, what is it?"

"Well do you need help with anything or can you just come over?"

"Yeah sure I'll be over in a couple of minutes, I have some marking for my classes you can help me do it if you want then we can watch a movie or something."

"Sure, sounds great." With that they hung up and Charlie picked up his crutches and hobbled into the kitchen to get a glass of water his knee now looked more swollen than it had 3 days ago rather than less. If he was going to get allowed back to work in 7 days then he was going to have to rest his knee.

Amita arrived and saw Charlie lying fast asleep on the sofa with a notebook open across his stomach. He looked so peaceful she thought she better leave him till he woke up and went into the kitchen to get herself a drink and found some biscuits open on the counter and as she thought the Eppes family wouldn't mind and she helped herself to a few.

Charlie woke up as Amita settled down on the chair next to the sofa he pulled himself up and looked over to where Amita sat, her hair looking particularly nice tied up with a blue stripy ribbon. They set to work marking the term papers of some of Amita's sophomore students, Charlie started laughing after finishing marking one of the papers of a Mr. James McAllister.

"What's so funny?"

"He got all of the hard things right and his theory is correct but he can't do 2 + 2 he got 5." Said Charlie, Amita came over and looking at the paper agreed it was quite funny.

When they had finished Amita put a movie in to the DVD player and with the angle of the TV you could only see the TV from the couch so Amita sat next to Charlie. Charlie put his leg up so it was resting on the coffee table instead of the couch, for some reason Charlie couldn't discern why he was getting fluttery feelings in his stomach which didn't seem to be duty to the lack of food he had had today but something else. The movie which was _A Knight's Tale _was surprisingly witty with lots of great acting and Charlie really enjoyed it and the fact that Amita was sitting this close to him did wonders for his mood.

When Alan came home around 6:00pm Amita said she had to go and that if he needed anything then just to call. Alan set about making dinner, Charlie decided that him going into the kitchen and talking to his dad would be a good idea as he could sit on one stool and prop his knee up on another.

"Hey Charlie, Stir-fry ok for dinner"

"Yeah sounds great. How was your game?"

"Well it was great; with my handicap I finished only 2 over par which was pretty good. Oh and well Stan asked me as he needs a consultant for his new project if I would like to help out, I thought that it would be a good idea what with Don and you out the house so much normally and it would give me something to fill my days with, I told Stan I would discuss it with you and Don then tell him tomorrow. He asked if I could start straight away but I said that could we give it 2 weeks if I did decide to take it then you would be back at work and wouldn't get into mischief." He said with a sly smile.

"I have been being a model patient, whatever gave you the idea that I couldn't be trusted to stay in the house by myself."

"Well apart from the fact that the first day you are on your own you end up at the FBI and by the looks of it set back your progress, that knee has certainly got much more swollen since this morning."

"I will be good, I think you should take it and start right away I am not going to do anything bad now, I have realised the error of my ways and don't want to set back my progress any further. You joining in the Poker game tonight with Don, David, Colby and me?"

"Don't know depends what's on the TV, when they coming over?"

"7:30 I think, Don said he would be over for dinner and hopefully be here at 6:30" just as Don walked in the door, he looked around to see where his brother and dad were then heard voices coming from the kitchen.

Seeing Don coming in Charlie said, "Yeah by the way did you hide my keys and stuff, so I wouldn't be able to leave?"

"Yeah but it didn't work though; I suppose it slowed you down enough that I caught you at the office though, which made it worthwhile."

Charlie started to look hurt that his brother hadn't trusted him enough to hide his things in an effort to stop him from sneaking out. When the dinner was ready Don carried his and Charlie through and the 3 men settled down to dinner, Alan and Don with beers and Charlie with a soda as his pain meds were not meant to be taken with alcohol. They had just finished up and tided away the dishes when David and Colby arrived accompanied by another FBI agent who Charlie vaguely recognised. Don got the card table out and the 5 men settled down Alan saying he was going to watch the Dolphin vs. Packers game in the other room.

By about 5 hands in Charlie had a large pile of chips in front of him and the other 4's piles had steadily decreased by varying amounts. The other FBI agent who Charlie discovered was called Paul asked him if he played this game often.

"No this is only the 3rd time I have played poker though it is a very interesting and Maths based game..." he continued on with some statics on how likely it was for him to get a flush and to get a full house, Paul wished he hadn't bother to say anything as obviously this guy was obsessed with Maths.

"There is only one other game I can think of that has more to do with Maths and that is baseball. I used to do Stats on Don so I could predict the likelihood that he was going to have a good game of not and which balls he should hit."

"You used to play?" asked Paul who was the captain of the FBI team.

"Yeah but I wasn't that good," replied Don

"Don went to College on a baseball scholarship; he taught me how to play."

"Yeah teaching you how to play only caused me and you (I suppose) pain and anguish." Don replied with a slight grimace.

"Was he that bad" asked Paul,

"No, it wasn't that exactly. Once he hit a ball into my face which broke my jaw, needed to be wired not pretty, in an attempt to catch a ball which I had hit, he fell over a ball already on the ground and broke his arm; he was in plaster for the whole of summer vacation. He also broke two windows with what would have been very good homeruns if the house wasn't in the way, there were other accidents too. Yeah Charlie was fairly good at baseball but very accident prone."

"He is still pretty accident-prone from what David and Colby have said and very stubborn when it comes to admitting he is hurt." Said Paul

"I am not, I always admit straight away when something hurts," replied Charlie indignantly.

"Remind me Charlie how long did you walk around with that ingrown toenail before you got it seen to ... so long that it got infected and you ended up in hospital." Don laughed looking at his brother's face which was turning redder by the minute.

**_Hope you liked it_**

**_please tell me what you think_**

**_FF_**


	2. Bike

"Charlie let me drive you to school today, you are going to be late and it is on my way to work today anyway." Pleaded Don who wished his brother had not slept through his alarm for the 2nd day running.

"It is fine Don; my first class doesn't start for 20 minutes so if I ride quickly then I will be there with 2 minutes to spare." Replied Charlie who was in the mood to be independent and not have his brother bail him out.

"Ok but please be careful," Don had an ominous feeling about today and he didn't want it to be proven right.

_56 minutes later_

"Hello is this Donald Eppes?"

"Erm yeah I' m Don," replied Don, starting to worry no-one ever called him by his full name

"I'm Amanda Burges; I'm a nurse at St Peter's memorial hospital, your brother was brought in after a car opened its door knocking him off his bike....."

"Is he ok?" the panic building up,

"Erm he is still be assessed by the doctors but he is conscious and asking for you, would you like me to fill you in on the rest of the story or would you like just to get down here, and hear it from him?"

"Probably best to hear it from him, I will be there as soon as I can get away,"

_24 minutes later_

Charlie was lying on the gurney with his head and neck immobilised by a neck brace and foam blocks holding everything in place. He knew they were just being careful but it made him worry they that the ambulance men had thought it was serious enough that he could have spinal injuries. He had just had an x-ray and C-T scan of his neck and back and also an x-ray of his shoulder which hurt slightly less as they had given him some morphine.

Don entered the room and was greeted with this sorry sight, he went over to the bed and could see that there was bruising already starting to appear on Charlie's face and a gash over his left eye.

"What happened?"

"I was riding along ... when a guy opened his door in front of me ... I swerved to miss and ended up hitting another car .... I kind of zoned out at that point.... next thing I knew I was ermmm being loaded into ambulance and being taken here." Finished Charlie, who was now wishing Don had given him that lift this morning.

"I hate to say I told you so when you are lying in a hospital like this but I told you so." Laughed Don now panicking less that he could see his brother was yes injured but was at least coherent and from what the nurse said when he walked in, his brother had no life threatening injuries according to the x-rays.

Just as Charlie was going to reply to his brother's flippant remark the doctor handling Charlie's case walked in carrying the x-ray results.

"Well Mr. Eppes; you have no spinal injuries and only some mild muscle strain in your neck which is often referred to as whiplash, a soft collar on that and you will be fine in no time, well in that respect anyway. You also have a nasty break-dislocation of your shoulder which will require some manipulation to get it back into the right place though from the x-rays you will not need to have surgery for this to take place just some local anaesthetic and we shall pop that back into place though if we have difficulties we will have to do it under a general."

The doctor went into the cupboard next door and came back with a soft neck brace and, with the help of the nurse who had materialised while he was in the cupboard, started removing the things holding Charlie's head and neck in place and helped him to sit up now with his head held only by a soft brace which was more for support than immobilisation. The nurse left and returned with a syringe containing local anaesthetic as well as some gas-and-air, he injected the syringe into his shoulder. The doctor left to check on another patient whilst the nurse took Don to fill out the pile of forms about Charlie's accident. All 3 returned after 10 minutes when the injection had begun to work and after handing Charlie the mouth piece for the gas-and-air machine started to fix his shoulder back into place with some grunts and a large crunch his shoulder was back where it should be. The doctor took another x-ray to confirm that it was in the right place.

After conformation that his shoulder was now re-aligned in the right place, the nurse fitted him for a sling and with the prescription for some painkillers and anti-inflammatories, Don and Charlie were on their way home.

***

Alan opened the door when he heard the car on the gravel outside, seeing the sight of his youngest son made his mouth literally fall open.

"What happened Charlie?"

"Got hit by a car Dad, the doctor said I'll be fine in a few weeks once my shoulder's healed."

After helping his little brother to sit down in one of the armchairs with a pillow propping his arm up taking the strain off his injured neck, Don went to the kitchen and got some frozen peas, giving them to Charlie who had found the TV remote and was flicking through channels with his good hand.

"So Mr Bump, did the doctor say anything about how long you should take off work?"

"He didn't say so presume that means I can go back tomorrow as long as I feel up to it which I will of course."

Both Alan and Don shook their heads they knew there was no point in arguing with him as he would never listen to them. Alan went into the kitchen and came back a short time later carrying a plate of sandwiches for them (cut into tiny triangles) telling Don he might as well stay for lunch now. Charlie picked up a sandwich and tried to cram it whole into his mouth but ended up instead choking himself, after a glass of water and lots of laughing on Don and Alan's part everything was back to normal.

_The next day_

Charlie walked into his first class looking like a right state; the bruising on his face had gone an impressive greeny purple colour except the bruising around his eye which was jet black. The neck brace which he had put back on, on the insistence of his father was holding his neck in place but limited his movement slightly and the sling binding his arm to his chest was meaning he had to do everything left handed which made opening doors and carrying a bag very difficult.

"Professor, what happened to you? You look a mess!" commented one of the guy who sat in the back and spend more time looking at the bottom and hair of the girl in front of him than on the blackboard.

"Lost a fight with a car, it looks worse than it is." Replied Charlie wincing as the strain of putting his bag down pulled on his injured shoulder.

"Shouldn't you be taking a day off school; its Friday, if you had taken today off then you would have had the weekend off as well to recuperate and get completely back on your feet." Said the girl whose bottom was more interesting than Advanced Game theory

"Thanks for your concern Aimee but the Doctor said it was fine and we need to get back to discussing Advanced Game Theory as that is what I get paid to do and we have a practical task today with help from my brother Don who should be here any moment." As Charlie finished Don walked through the door, feeling like he was a guest on a game show.

Charlie, with the help of Don, taught the class how Tit for Tat could be used to get information out of a suspect by co-operation rather than forcing him to give up the information by other traditional methods. Aimee played the part of the interrogator and Brad (the guy who now found her breasts even more interesting than her ass) was the criminal they were trying to get information out of. Charlie gave Brad a card with pieces of information on it that he could divulge and every so often he gave Aimee a card which had an important event on it such as the last piece of information was wrong or there was an ambush at the site he said. He gave Brad a final card that said "DON'T COOPERATE ANYMORE MAKE HER GIVE YOU TWO TITS FOR YOUR TAT", this made Aimee struggle for about 5 minutes trying to get him to speak, when finally someone else in the class said to her to give him two things for his next piece of info. She tried this by giving him a reduced sentence as well as allowing his girlfriend to see him.

Charlie then said that sometimes you have to be flexible and make the situation work even though they are getting more out of the deal than you as they need to trust you that you aren't going to swindle them. It is all about trust. Charlie's shoulder was really throbbing now but he had managed to get through 90% of his lesson and wasn't going to stop now. Just as Charlie finished speaking Don got a call saying that he needed to come into work even though it was his morning off as there had been a major incident. Don apologised and said he didn't want to go but he kind of had to. Charlie finished by showing a slide show of notes as he couldn't write up on the black board.

As the bell rang the class pushed past him to get out, completely forgetting about his shoulder, so when Amita came in a few minutes later she found Charlie bend over double clutching his shoulder. She hadn't heard what had happened and so was not just shocked at Charlie wincing in pain but also the bruising on his face which would have rivalled a loser in a bad pub fight.

"Woh! Charlie what happened?"

"Just now or yesterday?" winced Charlie

"Both, you look a mess I am sorry to say it but you do." Finished Amita as she pulled his chair over and helped him sit down, noticing the sling binding his arm to his chest. And the neck brace. Her worrying levels had hit the roof. She hadn't told Charlie that she liked him as more than just a friend (it had been awkward as he had been her tutor and a teacher but now she was no longer his student maybe she should tell him).

"I got knocked off my bike and hit a car, the product of which is before you," he tried to joke "yeah and my advanced Game theory class forgot this fact and having 20 odd students banging into your injured shoulder is not fun."

"Maybe you should just go home, I'll cover your classes and the ones I'm busy for Larry will cover. I have a spare period, so I can drive you home. You are not in a fit state to teach anyway." Finished Amita as she picked up his briefcase and coat and chivvied him out of the classroom.


	3. College

**College**

Don was still glad that Charlie and him didn't go to the same college, even when he was sitting in a doctors' office, waiting to find out why Charlie had been having pain in his arm. Charlie had been out with "friends" and had fallen after drinking at a party. Charlie, only being 15, was still 6 years shy of being legally allowed to have an alcoholic drink, but his "friends" gave him a few beers and Charlie, wanting to seem cool, had drunk them. Charlie though was not used to alcohol and had made a fool of himself; the night had finished with Charlie falling down the steps outside his dorm. This had been 3 days ago; but Charlie had thought that it was no more than some simple bruising, however, his arm had been getting more and more painful today and just before calling Don had gone white and tingly.

Charlie had told their mother that it was not cool for a college student's mum to be staying with him; So this year Charlie had moved into dorms and Margaret had moved back home, so as not to cramp Charlie's style. Charlie had phoned Don, telling him that he was really worried, so Don had driven a hundred miles to meet Charlie at the Doctor's office. Don had told Charlie he really should go to an ER but Charlie was sure that it was nothing and that he would just be wasting their time.

The Doctor came out and found Don sitting in the waiting room reading an old copy of a baseball magazine. "Don is it?" a nod from Don encouraged him to continue, "Your brother should have gone straight to a hospital, I believe he has a compartment haemorrhage in his wrist. If I am right then he will have to have that wrist operated on to relieve the pressure. Why did he not go to a hospital in the first place?"

"He was worried that our parents would find out about how he injured himself, so he suffered in silence for 3 days. He felt that if he came here then it would be kept more secret, he's not yet 16 so a hospital would have to contact our parents."

"Well I have telephoned for an ambulance, if that arm is not seen to he will most likely lose function in that arm, maybe even lose his hand. I told him that and he has agreed to go."

The ambulance arrived just as they finished, and Charlie was wheeled into a hospital no more than 15 minutes later. The Doctor agreed with the first doctor's opinion and Charlie was scheduled for surgery. They said they had to phone Charlie's parents; but were not obligated to tell them how he had injured himself exactly. Neither did they have to tell the police about the underage drinking as it was protected under patient confidentiality. Alan and Margaret said they wanted to speak with Don and asked him if Charlie was ok and if they needed to fly over.

Charlie pulled through the surgery with flying colours and came out with a row of stitches and a cast to protect his wrist. They had given him a sling and told him that for the next four weeks he was to keep his wrist elevated and not to use it for anything. This left Charlie with the slight problem of how he was meant to finish his assignments if he wasn't allowed to write. Don had given Charlie a stern telling off; even though he was more worried and upset than angry. Don was so glad that the only problem Charlie would be facing in the next few weeks was not being able to write, not other problems normally associating with drinking. Charlie had been lucky that his stupidity had not left him with permanent damage to his arm or brain damage due to alcohol poisoning.

Don realised that it must be hard for Charlie being 5 years younger than the majority of his classmates and that he wanted to prove himself to the other guy, but there were other ways apart from getting drunk. He was lucky this time the damage had been repaired and was not permanent.

Don had driven Charlie back to the dorms once he was allowed out of hospital, as they were about to walk into the dorm a small man (with mouse brown hair and t-shirt that depicted a sun turning into a supernova) came over once he noticed Charlie.

"Charles! What in the universe have you done to yourself?"

"Professor Fleinhardt, Erm... injured my wrist in a stupid accident, can I have an extension on that term paper as I am going to have some difficulty finishing it with my wrist like this."

"Of course, but I feel there is something going on that you are failing to mention,"

"Nope, can't think of anything,"

"Well if there is don't hesitate to come speak to me, it can't be easy being 15 and being in your junior year at college, if you ever want a chat please just drop by my office." He turned to go but Don laid a hand on his shoulder prompting him to wait.

"Excuse me Professor, can I have a word with you a second?"

Larry nodded and they both turned to walk away from Charlie who gave them a look that conveyed his annoyance that they were talking about him behind his back.

"Professor Fleinhardt,"

"Call me Larry,"

"Larry, could you please, since Charlie seems to get on with you, keep an eye on him. Make sure he stays out of trouble and doesn't get mixed up with the wrong people. It was fine when mum was here last year but now he is being a 'big grown-up man' he has no one to keep an eye on him. He is my little brother and he isn't really old enough to be at college by himself, well certainly not emotionally."

"Yes of course I will keep an eye on him and just make sure he focuses on his studies rather than partying. He is certainly smart enough to be here but you are right he isn't really old enough mentally, though he will never admit that."

"Thanks, I need to get back to class, I have missed 2 days already and there are only so many days you can catch up on without having to spend whole weekends in the library."

Don returned to Charlie and helped him into his dorm room, and found that Charlie's roommate looked to also be younger than the average college student; he was sitting on his bed, writing out a complicated series of 1s and 0s on a separate sheet that had lots of scribbling similar to stuff Charlie had written when he was analyzing his baseball statistics.

"Hey Tim, you were right it was more than just bruised, I had to have it operated on and everything."

"It's good you listened to me and phoned your brother. Do you want me to type up a copy of my notes for Professor Riches class so you aren't behind at least in that class? Jenifer dropped off your assignment for Professor Crabtree's class as well."

"Thanks Tim, yeah could you type up those notes for me and could I ask you a huge favour?"

"Yeah sure, do you want me to do help you finish your assignments for you until your arm heals?"

"Yeah, that would be great, thanks."

"Well Charlie, as you seem to have sorted it out and have friends willing to help you, I better be off back to college, I will see you at Thanksgiving."

Don left Charlie and Tim to work out how Charlie would make sure all his assignments would still arrive on time.

3 weeks later at Thanksgiving

"So Charlie how is your arm?" asked Alan as he helped serve up the turkey.

"Yeah, it feels a lot better thanks, just one more week and I can get rid of this thing," fiddling with his sling "and work on getting the movement back and get back to writing my own assignments rather than relying on my friends for help."

"Yeah that Tim guy seemed nice, why are you too not better friends?"

"We have become much better friends over the last 3 weeks, he seems a really nice guy, he is a freshman but is only a year older than me; he takes the same class as me with Professor Riches. He said he has enjoyed helping me with my assignments; it gives him something different than his usual course of class work."

"Yeah, he seemed nice and have you managed to keep out of trouble and get on with your school work?" Margaret asked.

"Yeah Ma, I have been a good little boy," he replied with a hint of sarcasm in his voice, "I have even volunteered to help Professor Fleinhardt with a project he is working on, in a couple of weeks when I get this sling off and am back doing my usual stuff, it has been a nightmare not being able to write down all the maths going through my head."

They all laughed knowing how much maths was probably running through his head at the moment and how he really needed to write it down to let it all out.

They settled down to eat thanksgiving dinner, Don knew what he had to be thankful for this year, that his family were all together reasonably unharmed and he hoped it would continue for a long time to come.


	4. Doctors

**_Thanx to my beta turnipchick who did a wonderful job of turning my story from ok to well better than ok_**

**_please read and review_**

**Doctors**

Charlie woke up feeling simply terrible, his throat ached and he felt hot one minute and freezing cold the next. He couldn't be ill he simply couldn't, he had his finals tomorrow marking the end of his PHD and he had to pass otherwise he wouldn't be able to take the job he had been offered at Cal Sci. He hoped it was one of those 24 hour cold things not anything more, he was sure Don had had that last year around Christmas.

He got up and got ready, he was going to do some final last minute studying in the library and possibly go see Larry, well Professor Fleinhardt, though he felt you shouldn't have to call friends Professor anything and Larry was certainly a friend now. He got to the Library around eight8ish and stayed until lunchtime, and then dragged himself along to where Larry's office was while he was teaching for a few months due to Professor Randal's maternity leave.

"Charles, are you feeling ok, you look very pale."

"I think I have one of those 24 hour bug things, you know where you feel awful one day then perfectly fine the next."

"Do you think you have that or are you hoping that is all it is?"

"A bit of both I suppose," he finished though his voice was getting slightly croaky now and was turning into more of a whisper.

"Here Charles, I shall make you some hot orange and honey, I have some in the fridge, I find it helps calm me before having to give a speech to an assembly of my peers." He said exiting the room to retrieve a carton of orange juice from the fridge which was in the staff room next door and picked up the jar of honey which was sitting in the corner of his desk as he left. He returned 5 or 6 minutes later with a steaming mug (with the decimal places of pi written in a spiral around the sides) of hot orange, setting it down in front of Charlie, he turned to pick up a book which he had obviously set aside for when Charlie stopped by.

"Charles this was the book I said I would give you, about Quantum Mechanics."

Charlie picked it up and thanked Larry with a nod of his head, as he feared his words would be no louder than a faint whisper. Larry realised about 20 minutes later that he was meant to be teaching a class at the moment and left Charlie the keys to lock up his office and said that once he was finished with the juice, could he leave the mug washed on the draining board of the staff room and give him back the keys to his office.

Charlie did as he was bid, taking the book back to his dorm; he was feeling slightly better now and was glad he had gone to see Larry, just talking to him made him feel better. Just as he was thinking about grabbing an early dinner at the cafe down the road and getting early to bed, hoping to be back feeling 100%... well at least 83%, the phone rang and when he picked it up, he was in some ways glad to hear his brother's voice.

"Charlie, I was wondering as I am in the neighbourhood if I could perhaps come by and maybe have dinner with you, I have something I want to discuss."

"Erm.... I don't know, I'm not feeling too hot and well I was thinking of having an early dinner and then hitting the sack, couldn't you maybe come over another night."

"Well I could pick something up on by way over, like Chinese or pizza and then we could have it in your room and you know just talk." He pleaded,

Charlie could tell whatever he wanted to discuss must be important for him to be pushing so much and he felt touched that Don wanted to discuss something with him.

"Ok, let's have pizza, Oh and could you get some ice-cream while you are out." Charlie couldn't really stomach the thought of either pizza or Chinese but knew that Don loved pizza and he could maybe just have a few slices and lots of ice-cream which would certainly help his throat, which was starting to feel as if someone had rubbed it with sandpaper.

Don came in ½ an hour later with a large box of pizza and a bag of what looked like coke and ice-cream hanging off his arm. He noticed Charlie was looking a little pale but thought it might be just his brother running himself into the ground again and not really anything to serious.

"So, what seems to be wrong is it just that you are overworked or have you managed to stupidly catch an infection this close to your exams."

"I'm hoping it is only a 24 hour thing though I would have thought that I would be feeling slightly better if that was the case. I woke up feeling awful, felt a little better after seeing Larry but feel awful again." Charlie's words were a little hoarse but at least they weren't as quiet as they had been earlier.

"I am sorry; you sounded ok on the phone. I didn't realise there was anything wrong." He handed Charlie a slice of pizza and a glass of coke, he had brought plastic cups with him.

"It's ok, so what did you want to discuss with me?"

"Well, I am thinking of giving up baseball and joining the FBI, what do you think?"

"Erm yeah, you would be good at that you are very fit and have a great sense of what is right and wrong. I didn't know you had even been considering law enforcement."

"I hadn't been really, I just feel that I have no hope getting to the major league so why waste my time when I could be doing something more useful." He had obviously thought long and hard about this, and just wanted to see if someone else thought he was making the right decision, and wasn't just wasting his talents as a baseball player. He seemed happy that Charlie agreed it wouldn't be a stupid decision to give up baseball and sign-up for training with the FBI, Charlie was sure he would make a good agent.

They turned on the TV and sat and watched it, finishing off the pizza and Coke, with Don eating over ¾ of the pizza as Charlie seemed to have lost his appetite due to his throat throbbing so much. When he ate anything it felt like someone running a chisel down it and the back of his throat was really sore as well, like his tonsils were really swollen. Don left just before 9 saying that he would leave Charlie to get some sleep as he had exams in the morning and that after phoning mum and dad he would sign-up for training .

Charlie felt sweltering when he went to bed so decided to only sleep with a thin blanket on, he really hoped he would wake up the next morning and it all would be ok and he would not feel as if his throat was on fire. After taking two ibuprofens, he settled down for a troubled night's sleep.

He woke up and realised he must have not set his alarm as it was 8:00 and he had an exam in less than 35 minutes, he felt even more rough than the night before but knew that he must go to his exam as it counted for a huge part of his grade and he couldn't really just stay in bed however tempting it might seem. He got up and got himself dressed, putting on a warm baggy hoodie (which had been Don's but he no longer wanted), he managed to get himself to the exam with a few minutes to spare.

Just as the exam was about to start a strange feeling came over him as if someone had simultaneously dropped him in a bath of ice and made him run a marathon. He tried to get the examiners attention but his voice failed him. He stood up hoping that might get his attention. What happened next certainly did, he crumpled straight down to the floor and every eye including the examiners was on him.

He woke up to a bright white light and slightly scratchy white linen; he saw a face through the foggy mist he recognised that of his father who had look upon his face Charlie had rarely seen, one of sheer terror and worry,

"Dad," he croaked

"Charlie, you had us very worried," he looked as if he was holding back tears.

Charlie tried to reply but no words came out and his throat was throbbing, a nurse wandered in presumably to check for any change which obviously there was.

"Nice to see you awake, how you feeling you had everyone mighty vexed about you," she said with the hint of a German accent.

Charlie again tried to talk but it hurt too much to utter a sound, instead he motioned as if he was writing. The nurse catching on pulled out the notebook she kept in her overalls encase she felt like jotting down a poem which she often did, she flipped to a clean sheet and handed it to Charlie along with the pencil she kept with it. Charlie thought for a minute then wrote in his untidy scrawl:

My throat feels as if it has been rubbed raw with sand paper

I also feel like I've just run a marathon and I feel all shivery

With a little help from Alan the nurse managed to decipher the scribbles, and asked him how long he had been feeling ill for and why he hadn't just taken the day off.

Well I had my finals today (it's still today right?) and well they are really important and so I felt I had to go and do them otherwise I'd never get the Job at Cal Sci, it all started yesterday morning really.

The nurse managed that one on her own and asked Alan if Charlie was this stubborn normally, to which he replied that this was pretty amenable for Charlie; she laughed and left to get the doctor. Alan and Charlie "chatted" until the doctor arrived; he looked no older than himself though Charlie knew he must be older than that to be a doctor.

"Well mister Eppes, we better have a look at those tonsils."

He took out a mini torch and told Charlie to open as wide as he could, took a look at the back of Charlie's throat and then felt under Charlie's chin at his glands. He wrote some things down then said,

"Well you seem to have a bad case of tonsillitis, which doesn't seem to have been helped by you running around trying to do your final exams. Those tonsils are very infected, I will consult with Dr Matthews and see whether he thinks they need to be lanced or whether just to give you some antibiotics and see if that works."

He left and came back 10 minutes later with a very tall doctor who was wearing a Red Sox's baseball top rather than a white coat. He felt Charlie's glands and looked at his throat as well. Then he said;

"Yes, your right Jason, they are very inflamed and I'm not sure whether lancing them would help or whether they just need to be left alone to 'deflate' by themselves."

They both left again and came back 5 minutes later with IV bag of penicillin,

"Ok Charlie, we are going to set up this IV as you trying to swallow any antibiotics would be difficult, we are going to keep you in overnight at least and see if those tonsils improve any, if there is no improvement then we will re-evaluate and see if there is a better option to try. I also prescribe no talking as it will just aggravate your throat and slow down the healing process."

The nurse came back in a few minutes later to check up on Charlie and he returned her notebook to her, she thanked him and after checking the IV was producing the proper output she left.

Alan left to get some coffee a short time later after asking if Charlie wanted anything to which he shook his head. He returned after what felt to Charlie to be years with a pamphlet on ASL finger spelling;

"Well since you aren't allowed to talk and you are going to be bored stiff for the next couple of days being laid up in bed I thought I would give you something to do." He handed Charlie the leaflet and they both looked at it trying to perfect each letter of the alphabet. It wasn't easy but Charlie had improved a lot by the time the nurse came in at tea time to ask if Charlie wanted anything even just ice-cream which was proven to be the best thing for tonsils that she had found. Not understanding his reply, she looked blankly at him until after noticing the leaflet lying on the table used it to decode what he had said.

The nurse came in just before 8; to say that Don had phoned up to speak to him and would he come take the call. Alan left to take the call hoping this wasn't some other disaster he would have to take care of; one disaster per day was quite enough. Don told his dad about wanting to quick baseball and was surprised how much Alan was for him quitting and doing something more practical with his life. Don then asked his dad how Charlie was and apologised for not realise how sick Charlie was last night and telling him to take it easy. Alan told Don to come down since he was in the area, as he wanted to see both his sons and that he was sure Charlie wanted to see him.

Don arrived just after ½ past with a box of Charlie's favourite chocolates and a large tub of ice cream, he put the gifts down on the bedside table and settles down in the chair which Alan had found 10 minutes earlier in the bathroom cupboard. He helped himself to some of the coke which he had also brought and asked the other 2 men if they wanted any.

Charlie still felt rather rough, so didn't have any but Alan helped himself to some coke and some of the ice-cream. They settled into a slightly happier atmosphere now that Alan and Don knew Charlie was going to be ok and wouldn't need extreme medical help. They chatted until around 10:30 when Charlie's eyes started to droop and the two older men thought it might be better to leave and let him get some rest.

**5 days later**

Charlie was sitting up in bed, playing cards with his dorm mate Elliot, he was useless at this game but it made Elliot feel better that the genius Charlie was bad at some things, (Charlie had beaten him at Chess with only being able to use his bishops for check/checkmate). After the sixth game Charlie had lost in a row he was getting slightly bored by this game and signed to Elliot that he wanted to play another game. It had become a fun way for Charlie to communicate with still not being able to talk. They had sent him home from hospital two days earlier. His dad had been popping in every day to check up on Charlie but said if everything was ok when the doctor came over today then he would go back home. Don had left the day Charlie got out of hospital as he had to start training up in Quantico, Charlie knew his brother would make a wonderful FBI agent and just hoped he wouldn't boss everyone around too much. Elliot pulled out his old battered version of Cluedo and they played that until the doctor came at 2 o'clock.

"Well Charlie, you seemed to have made a vast improvement over the last few days and your tonsils have gone back to almost normal size and your glands have reduced in size as well. I think give yourself until Monday then you can go back to class but take it easy and don't run yourself into the ground catching up I am sure your friends will photocopy their notes for you and you could ask your teachers for printed copies of their lectures, so take it easy and I hope not to have to see you again." He packed up his stuff and left.

Charlie did as the doctor ordered and "took it easy", he was slightly panicky though as he affectively failed his end of year exams, by the default of not taking it. There was no way he was going to still get that job having not finished the year fully. Just as he was thinking this over the Dean of Studies came over to him.

"I see you are feeling much better Mr Eppes,"

"Thank you Sir, I have been cleared to go back to classes though I'm not sure how I am going to make up for the Finals that I missed."

"Yes I was just coming over to talk about that, it has been decided as you have such good marks in the course up until now and it would be very difficult for the teachers to make up new finals just for you that they will give you predicted grades for the final exam element so that you don't have to actually do the exams. It makes it easier for everyone."

"Thank You Sir, that is great news I was worried I would have to take the year again. "

"Well enjoy your final few weeks Mr Eppes.


	5. Egghead

**_The ash cloud was so annoying i got stuck in a holland and needed to get 3 trains to get back home but atleast i got back in time for my exams unlike some people my school._**

**_Sorry for the wait but i have exams at the mo and so this story has to go on the back burner for the moment_**

**_Thanx to my beta turnipchick who did a wonderful job of turning my story from ok to well better than ok_**

**_please read and review_**

Charlie was so glad that he got this free holiday to London, he had won it in a newspaper competition that Don had convinced him to enter as the odds that he would win were so low… but he had still won. The holiday was all expenses paid holiday to London and staying in a 5 star hotel overlooking Hyde Park. He had decided to extend the 5 day holiday to include a trip up to Scotland for a couple of nights to see Edinburgh and the East Coast. It had been hard to organise hotels in Scotland at such short notice but had found a quaint hotel in a town called Markinch which was only a short drive from Edinburgh and St Andrews. The Holiday had gone great a few rounds on the golf course and a trip round Edinburgh on the Open-top bus. He had been to the dungeons and the castle as well, though he was surprised at the cost of both.

Charlie got the train back down to London Heathrow and was ready for his flight back to Los Angles; it would be great he would be back in time for dinner on Friday night with Don and his Dad. When he got to the airport he was surprised to see the incredibly long lines standing in front of all the information desks. There had to be roughly a couple of hundred people waiting to talk to the help desk people. He then noticed the red cancelled signs next to the majority if not all the flights exiting the airport and the huge sign (he wasn't quite sure how he managed to miss it) that said: _**due the Ash cloud from the volcano in Iceland all flights exiting the UK have been cancelled until further notice, please can you join the appropriate queue and wait to be served so that you can re-arrange your flight.**_

He dutifully joined the line and thought he better give his dad a ring to say that he wouldn't probably be home until tomorrow at the earliest. He wondered how he hadn't heard about this earlier. His brother picked up the phone when he phoned his home number.

"Charlie, hey, I guess you are stuck in England now until the cloud moves out of British airspace."

"Yep, wait why are you the house at 3 in the afternoon?"

"Did Dad not tell you about the accident?"

"No, what accident was that?"

"We were following up a lead at the hospital and the victim's husband ran when he saw us, so I naturally followed and didn't notice the spilled soup all over the floor, I slipped and sprained by ankle pretty bad. They said I got to keep off it for a couple of weeks let it heal up."

"Nasty, so are you staying at the house until you back on your feet?"

"Erm... not sure yet but might well do. Anyway CNN were saying the British and European airports are being too optimistic about when they are going to get flying again and that it is likely to be next weekend at the earliest, though there might be the odd flight that takes off here and there and that you are better to either wait it out or make your way to Spain and get a flight from there over to America."

"Really… next week, yeah I suppose with the amount of stranded passengers as well, it will take weeks to get everyone back to their right countries as well. Well I will phone you back when I find out more." He hung up and realised that even though he had been waiting for ages, it had made very little difference in terms of the queue he had left to go. He decided he better find a way to occupy himself and took out his new _iPhone _which he had gotten from Don for his birthday, he decided that he hadn't played the new game he had bought just before leaving and took it out put his headphones on and played some sort of go-kart game but it had all the Shrek characters as the drivers of the karts. It passed the time and he realised that he had been waiting now for nearly 2 hours and had made maybe 10 metres in the queue if that. He had got slightly bored of the game at the moment as he had completed all the challenges on the easy mode and didn't want to win everything depending how long he was going to be stuck here for. He started talking to the people queuing around him and found out that the guy in front of him was from Dublin and was trying to get to Stockholm in Sweden and was now trying to get his 3rd re-arranged flight as he had missed his connection because his plane from Ireland had been delayed. The guy behind him was a Greek business man who lived in Canada but was trying to get to Greece to visit family with his girlfriend; he had been on holiday in England before going to Greece. He decided to start making a list of all the people he met.

When Charlie finally got to the head of the queue, the lady was very optimistic that he could get a flight to New York tomorrow and then make his own way to Los Angles from there. He took it but was worried that Don would be right and he that all the flights would still be disrupted for days to come yet. The lady said that he could go through to the Departure lounge if he showed his old ticket to the guy at security and explained what was going on. Charlie got through to the departure lounge and saw that there were thousands of people wandering around not really having a purpose.

He got himself some food as the restaurants were still open and sat down to eat. After he was finished he went wandering around the airport exploring. He was just about to walk through a door when the door opened smacking him in the face with a great deal of force. Charlie saw stars and fell to the floor really stunned. A teenage girl bent down to help up, looking incredibly apologetic. Charlie could feel something wet and sticky trickling down his head and it hurt a lot.

"You okay, I am so sorry" said the very sorry girl who wore a faded white t-shirt over her black long-sleeved top and jean which were ripped at the bottom, she had a pair of Eeyore socks on and no shoes.

"Erm... yeah I think so though I'm not sure whether the room is meant to be spinning." Charlie sat up and then with help from the teenager stood up but relying greatly on her to stop him falling over. She helped him over to a bench, picked up his sports bag which he had dropped when he fell, then proceeded to inspect the cut above his left eyebrow. It wasn't that deep though it was quite large in diameter. She told Charlie to wait there while she went and got her friend. She returned a few minutes later with a tall dark-haired boy who looked roughly the same age as her. The boy bent down and took a sterile swap out of his bag and wiped the blood off Charlie's head. He turned to the girl and asked her to get a piece of gauze and some tape out of his bag. He pressed the gauze on to the cut and secured it with the tape. He then tested the size of the pupils in Charlie's eyes and that they could follow his finger when it moved around. He then after further tests said that Charlie had a very slight concussion but nothing to worry about.

"Thanks Alex, I am so sorry Charlie, you must come and sit with us so that we can keep an eye on you and also so I can apologise." Said the girl who had yet to introduce herself, she helped Charlie over to a pile of bags and another 3 girls all of roughly the same age as the 2 teenagers he had already met.

"Is this the guy you maimed coming through the door in your usual rush?" said a girl who had longish brown hair and a fainted scar on her forehead which was mainly covered by her fringe, she had braces and a t-shirt that said _why should I tidy my room when the world is in such a mess_.

"I was not going that fast." Said the original girl looking slightly hurt now,

"I am sorry for my female companions rudeness, let me introduce everyone, the girl who nearly knocked you out is Sarah" Sarah looked sheepish again and mouthed _I really am sorry_ "this is Catriona" pointing to the girl in the interesting t-shirt, "that is Mhairi and Fiona" pointing to a girl with very curly hair pulled back in a plait at her back who was wearing a t-shirt saying _that the quickest way to a man's heart is through his ribcage _and a girl with cropped brown hair and a T-shirt with a picture of a plane on it. "I am Alex, by the way, Alex Coleman and I am unfortunately the most sensible out of this lot, remind me why I agreed to come with you lot." He said to the others

"Because you could not upset me, now could you especially as I helped you with your AS history revision." Quipped Sarah who had turned round to pick up something out of her bag and Charlie noticed that on the back of her t-shirt was Puss in boots from Shrek.

"So where are you trying to get to?" asked Charlie who was feeling slightly better, well at least the room wasn't spinning as much now.

"We are trying to get to Australia, we are going there for a few weeks, Mhairi, Fee and Sarah have a comp over there as well and Alex and I are just along for the fun ride it will be." Said Catriona who was also rustling around in her bag.

Charlie noticed that the bag that Sarah was riffling around it had a cartoon picture of a fencer on it and painted on it in what looked like nail varnish was her initials and what Charlie presumed was her address. Sarah stopped riffling when she obviously found what she was looking for; a jar of caramel and a bag of soft pretzels. She offered them around and only Alex took her up on the offer, Catriona saying that she didn't trust anything that came out of a sweaty sports bag. She offered them to Charlie who felt that maybe eating anything at the moment was a bad idea so politely refused.

"So, how do you all know each other?" asked Charlie.

"Well Catriona and Sarah have been friends since they were tiny; Mhairi and I met Sarah through Fencing at local comps." Put in Fiona

"I met Sarah at a fencing camp a few years ago and we became friends and then she came to stay with me for a couple of weeks in the hols and we sort of clicked, now we have been going out for about 10 months." Finished Alex who now had his arm around Sarah's shoulders,

"Where are you trying to get back to Charlie?" asked Sarah who was cuddling back into Alex's arms.

"Well I need to get back to Los Angles, I have classes starting in less than a week," replied Charlie who was now wondering who would cover his classes if he didn't make it back in time.

"I presume you are some sort of teacher you look slightly too old to be a pupil" asked Mhairi who hadn't spoken up until now.

"Yes, I teach applied Mathematics at Cal Sci in Los Angles." Just as he finished his phone rang.

Charlie picked up his phone and noticed it was Don's mobile that was calling,

"Hello?"

"Hi Charlie, I need a favour, can you take a look at some equations if I sent you them via email?"

"What sort of case are we talking here?"

"A young woman went missing and we found these equations at her house. If you could look at them that would be great you could sent me anything you find via email or if you could find a webcam we could talk it over, as you are likely to be stuck in London for a few days at least." Replied Don

Charlie agreed to the proposition and said that he would look them over and sent them back to him by morning here hopefully. Charlie noticed at this point that it was nearly 11 o'clock at night and no wonder he was slightly tired.

The group of teenagers asked him what the phone call was about and he told them about his brother and how he sometimes consulted for Don on cases.

"Alex do you have your webcam in your bag, you said you would bring it so we could chat to the folks back home from Australia." Asked Sarah

"Yeah, I think it is in my bag in the front pocket next to my laptop."

Fiona leaned over all the bags and found the laptop and webcam exactly where Alex had said they would be. She produced them and handed them over to Charlie who turned on the laptop and connected the webcam in. When the computer was loaded up, Charlie noticed that due to the large number of people the airport had made their internet access free. He logged on to the internet and made his way to his email page, he noticed there was 2 from Amita, the one from Don and one from the company who had given him the holiday here asking him to tell them what he thought about the holiday. He thought the holiday had been very good until he got stuck in London.

Charlie opened the attachments and looked at the page of numbers, nothing popped out at him, but sometimes this took a while so he had another look saved the numbers to a document on the laptop and then closed it down.

"Well we better settle down for some sleep, though we better keep an eye on Charlie make sure he doesn't fall into a coma, it is unlikely but still." Finished Alex,

"Where are we going to sleep?" asked Charlie looking around looking for beds or the like.

"Well we have blankets in our bags and I have one of those sausage pillows in my bag as well. If we put some of the blankets on the floor and then use the others as covers as well as some of the bags and any other pillows we have to sleep on, we should be ok. If we sleep close together we can share body heat," Decided Sarah who pulled out blankets and a pillow out of her rucksack."

"You seem very organised this happen to you a lot?" asked Charlie trying to think if he had anything in his bag that he could add to the effort.

"No but we are going to be sleep in youth hostels in Australia, those places aren't always that hot and as we are travelling from place to place it means sleeping in buses and cars and the like thus it is better to be prepared."

They set about lying out the blankets and used coats as well; they rolled up jumpers and used their bags as pillows as well as the travel pillows that Catriona and Sarah had packed in their bags. They settled down and tried to get to sleep hoping that ash cloud would move and they would get to where they wanted to get to, soon.

When Charlie woke up for the 3rd time, (the teenagers had made sure that he woke up every two hours or so, so that he wouldn't fall into a coma on their watch) Alex was looking at his computer and writing things down on a pad of paper which was propped up next to him. Sarah was pooling money together and taking orders about what people wanted for breakfast. The other three were tidying up the area they had been occupying; Charlie stood up to see what Alex was doing on the laptop. He thought it looked familiar but couldn't remember where he had seen it before, then he realised it was the numbers that Don had sent him last night.

"What are you doing?" asked Charlie slightly annoyed that Alex was snooping around private FBI case notes.

"Working out this code, it's quite interesting really it uses the atomic numbers of the elements, if you write out the symbols then its spells out a message, I have worked out some of it. Do you want me to finish or do you want to finish it?" Asked Alex, writing more letters down:

"What have you got so far?"

BeTh,

Se U At ThE sUN iNN, FrI

BrING a BOX eVErY HOUR, nAtHeNc

"There is what looks another letter underneath also written in code, I will try to decode it as well if you want?" asked Alex, showing Charlie what he had written.

"Thanks Alex, I would not have thought of something like that, you doing Chemistry at university?"

"No; I am doing Medicine, just finishing my second year at Dundee." Explained Alex who was now trying to decode the next message,

"How did you know to try the periodic table to decode the numbers?" asked Charlie

"Well we had puzzles like that in Chemi at school a few years ago, I tried other methods but couldn't think of anything else that would work also I thought it was odd the numbers were all 2 or 3 digits grouped together."

"I was thinking we better move to somewhere with a power socket if we are going to keep your laptop charged, also what do you and Charlie want for breakfast?" butted in Sarah.

"Erm, what else is everyone else having?" asked Alex, who pressed the save button and then put his computer in hibernation mode.

"Mainly muffins and juice, do you want me just to get a selection of muffins, different kinds of juice and see if I can find anything else that looks vaguely breakfasty." Concluded Sarah who was currently putting all the money she had collected plus one of the food tokens that was left in a separate pocket of her purse.

The two guys agreed to this and started discussing more about the periodic puzzle, Mhairi said she would go with Sarah to get all the food and the other 2 girls and the guys could move their stuff to an area with a power socket.

Charlie and Alex decoded the 2nd and 3rd messages over some muffins and coffee, they read:

BeTh,

WHeRe IS Po'S OXeN

E St iN TeN HOUR, nAteN,

BeTh,

ThY Ar CoMnG aFTeR aBi

Be At Osi BaR, nAteN

They sent these off to Don and got an instant reply even though it must be the middle of the night in LA at the moment, he thank Charlie for working it out and said they had found another odd set of numbers which had something to do with the City of Stars but they couldn't find anything that worked using Rome, he said he would copy the page and sent it to Charlie in a short while. After breakfast the girls when rekeying around the airport to find shops and see what else there was. Charlie and Alex stayed as they weren't into shopping that much.

Don sent the next lot of numbers; Charlie saw what Don was talking about above the list of numbers was the words printed City of Stars. Charlie thought about the word Rome and the words City and the word Star but none of them seemed to have anything that would crack the code. When the girls got back with a lunch of sandwiches and coke, they asked Charlie why he was so upset.

"I can't understand what the key word is to decipher this code," He pointed to the computer screen, and the list of numbers.

City of Stars

207/26 303/11 303/6 5/67 88/23 206/237

60/54 55/22 1/45 5/76 65/12 111/7 66/25

72/16 2/35 5/18 5/201 62/217 218/62 16/27 49/207 101/226

69/301 72/111 80/24 15/15 43/8 48/201 143/84

201/155 157/43

"Have you thought about it being the book?" asked Catriona

"What book?"

"Well it says _City of Stars_ at the top and there is a book called _The City of Stars_, I read it a few months ago."

"It might be though we don't have a copy to translate it though which is annoying."

"Erm ... we do have a copy I have it in my bag, I borrowed it from Cat after she had finished with it, do you want to see if it works?" asked Sarah.

He agreed and then set about translating it and after about half an hour, working out that the first number was the page number and the 2nd number was what word it was on the page. He worked it the message was:

Need you to find the Manoush

Will meet you at the Duke's Horseman

If I'm not there by 5 then don't wait

For me expect my cover has been blown

Love you

Charlie sent this off to Don, he didn't expect him to answer as it was only early morning over there and he was likely only just waking up. He found out more about the group of teenagers he was currently bunking with. He found out that Catriona, Sarah and Mhairi all lived in Scotland and Fiona lived in Aldershot and Alex near Birmingham. All 5 of them were at Uni in Scotland; Sarah and Alex were both Dundee whereas Catriona was at Edinburgh and the other two girls were at Glasgow. They had stayed over at Alex's before driving down to London to catch the plane to Hong Kong then to Australia. Alex was very interested in what Charlie did at Cal Sci, he thought that it was very good to make people enjoy maths and see why it applied to real life.

A call came over the Tannoy asking if a Mr C E Eppes could come to the information desk please.

Charlie got up and made his way to the information desk, he was greeted by a small plump woman who had a badge on her lapel that said her name was Kimberly.

"Mr Eppes, your brother has been on the phone and said that he feels the best way for you to get home is if you take the Eurostar to Paris then a train to Madrid where you can fly back to the US."

"And did he say how I was to book this?"

"No, he didn't mention that but I can book that all for you here if you want?"

"Thank you; that would be great."

They booked Charlie a Eurostar ticket and a train ticket from Paris to Madrid for the next day and a ticket for a plane from Madrid to New York the day after. He went back to the group of teenager and told them of his plan to get home.

"Well we will miss you; it has been fun trying to work out your little problems that your brother sent you." Finished Sarah who was looking in her bag for the pad of paper she knew was in it somewhere. "Can you give me your email address so we can keep in touch?"

Charlie wrote down his email address for both his home and school and told them if they ever wanted to visit LA then to look him up as they would be most welcome to stay at his house.

They finished their final night together eating grilled chicken and cheese sandwiches and telling stories about funny things that had happened to them or people they knew. They continued well into the night and for Charlie who had an early start the next morning to start his long trip home, it was possibly not the best idea.

Charlie got home fairly safe and sound he had some problems at immigration at New York as they wondered why he had his head bandaged and why he was flying to New York not LA as that made more sense to them. He explained what had happened and they let him through telling him maybe he should be more careful when walking through doors.

When he got to LA he saw his dad and his brother who seemed to be balancing on a crutch at the moment with his ankle supporting a thick black ankle brace. When they saw Charlie they made their way over to him and then all 3 of them made their way to the car.

About a week later when Charlie was checking his emails he noticed he had one from an email address he didn't recognise:

_Dear Charlie,_

_We have finally got to Australia and will have to cut our trip short by a week but at least we managed to get over for the competition, Sarah came 29__th__ in the Sabre, Fee 12__th__ in the epee and Mhairi 18__th__ in the epee and 42__nd__ in the sabre. _

_It has been fun so far and we wish we had had that extra week as there is so much to see over here that we wish we could spend even longer but unfortunately we have to get back for exams so that is a shame. _

_We were thinking we might go back to Australia next year again and as it is cheaper to fly via LA we might pop in to see you on the way._

_From Alex and the girls_

_P.S if you are wondering about the email address it is a joined one for Sarah and Me, Sass short for Sarah and AC my initials well I hope you enjoyed our company._


	6. Failure

_**Hope you enjoy this chapter have been busy with exams so haven't been writing as much, thanx very much to my beta **turnip chick** you did a fabulous job of sorting this story out, particularily when my brain forgot out to form the past tense in one paragraph.**_

**_have written some more so will upload again soon hopefully._**

Charlie was standing in front of his 4th period class and feeling simply awful, his stomach hurt and he felt very queasy. He was trying very hard to keep his head on the numbers on the blackboard instead of vomiting all over the class sitting in front of him. He was so thankful when the bell rang, he chivvied his class out saying if they wanted to speak to him to come see him at the end of the day not just now as he had somewhere he needed to be (drastically).

Charlie rushed out of his classroom and nearly knocked Larry over in his rush, he made it to the bathroom before the wave of nauseous overcame him and he revisited the 2 slices of toast he had had for breakfast. Larry came into the bathroom to check Charlie was ok.

"Charles are you feeling alright you rushed past me so fast I was worried something was up." Charlie emerged from the cubicle looking an odd shade of greeny white, he walked over to the sink washed his hands and splashed water on his face before answering Larry.

"Erm... I wasn't feeling great earlier but now I feel a lot better, anyway I have a class in 5 minutes, I'd better be off, they won't like it if I'm late." He made a quick exit and then made his way back to his classroom.

The class wasn't too bad, it was one of those classes that you had to take even if you weren't doing maths which meant that no-one was paying too much attention to what Charlie was saying, they were more interested in the slowly moving hands on the big clock behind Charlie's head. Charlie let the class out 5 minutes early and thought maybe he should go home and lie down, but decided since he only had one class left in about 30 minutes that he would battle on until then. He wished the pain in his side would go away that coupled with the nausea was making his life impossible.

He managed to battle on through until his last class was finished and wrote a note on his office door saying something had come up and he needed to go home early, if anyone wanted to speak to him to email him on .com . When he got home he was pleased to see no-one was there, if either mum or his dad had been there then they would have questioned him when all he wanted to do was go to bed and sleep off this 48 hour stomach bug (he hoped!).

When Alan got home 45 minutes later he was surprised to see Charlie's car in the drive, he was sure Charlie had not said anything about coming home early but maybe he had decided to do his marking at home today or had left something and needed to get it for a class.

Alan found his youngest son lying on his bed holding his stomach, but when he asked Charlie what was wrong he got the answer that he was fine and that it was only a stomach bug and he would be fine. Around Dinner time Margaret went back up to check on Charlie and ask him if he wanted anything to eat, he said his stomach still hurt and he didn't want to be sick again, she said to have an early night and hopefully he would feel better in the morning.

Charlie was up early in the morning, Alan asked him if he was going to take the day of to recuperate but Charlie said he had an important lecture to give today and there was no-one that can to cover it. Charlie set off for Cal Sci wishing he had maybe taken the day off but thinking that he could take the rest of the day off after the lecture.

It was all going fine until about ½ way through when his stomach went from being annoyingly painful to excruciatingly sore. The room started to spin and he fell semi-conscious to the floor of the stage. The last thing he heard before completely blacking out was worried student voices coming to check if the fallen professor was alright.

Don was sitting in his office so glad that the case that had been occupying all his time recently was finally finished; he might even have been able to have a real home cooked meal rather than takeaway pizza for dinner that night. Don noticed that today's newspaper was lying next to him on Chris's desk; he thought it would be a good opportunity to catch up with the sports' scores he had missed over the past few days. He picked up the discarded newspaper which had now fallen on the floor beside his desk and was startled by the headline which he saw on the 2nd page:

_**Math Professor Collapses at Lecture**_

_Maths professor Charles Eppes (27) was rushed to hospital yesterday after he collapsed while giving a lecture at Cal Sci University._

_The young Math Professor was giving his lecture on Unified Game Theory when according to witnesses he said he wasn't feeling well and then collapsed, the students called an ambulance and Dr Eppes was taken to St Peter's memorial hospital nearby. Doctors at the hospital would not give out specific details on the professor's status but said he was in a critical condition though at the moment he was stable._

_A student from Cal Sci, Amelia Ingles said when interviewed yesterday that she hoped Professor Eppes recovered as he was an excellent teacher and made the subject of maths fun even if you weren't very good at it. This reflects all reports on the professor who seems to be a much loved professor at the school._

Don's jaw dropped, he couldn't work out why his dad hadn't told him about Charlie, he had been busy true but not so much so that he couldn't talk to his dad about his brother being rushed to hospital. Don took out his mobile and checked to see if there were any calls that he had missed because he was out of signal range or something.

There was one missed call from his dad from last night, "_DON, I'm at the hospital, your brother collapsed at School, he is ok at the moment but I think you should come down, DAD"_

There was one from his mom as well saying the same sort of thing, pleading for him to come see his brother.

Don hated hospitals, he had ever since he was a child, so he decided to phone his dad and see if Charlie was ok.

"Don, I'm so glad you called, I was getting worried?" his dad said checking the caller id before answering.

"Yeah I only just got your message, I have been so busy. I actually saw the article in the paper before I even got your message." Replied Don truthfully,

"Yes it is a rather worrying account of events; your brother had appendicitis though the doctors think he must have been walking around for a few days at least with it brewing up as it was ready to burst which could have meant serious consequences for Charlie."

"But he is ok now?"

"Yes, Yes, he is recovering nicely, though it will be a few more days 'til he is allowed out of here and then at least a week of recuperation at home, can't wait for the 'I'm fine really, can I please go back to work now', you would think he would love some time at home relaxing but no. So when are you coming down to see him?"

"Well that's the problem Dad, you see I am swamped down here but I will try to come down and see him if I get a free moment. I really need to go, give my love to Mum and Charlie."

He really wasn't that busy but he couldn't face going to see Charlie in the hospital, he hoped his mum got better from the cancer, he couldn't face having to spend lots of time in hospital, he told himself that she would be ok and that him moving back was all it took for her to beat the cancer. She was an otherwise healthy women and she would get through this. He missed all his friends in Albuquerque but knew being with his family at this difficult time was more important and how hard it must be for his dad now having his son in hospital as well as his wife having to be in and out of hospital for chemo and other treatments. He couldn't believe how much of a failure he felt not even being able to go to the hospital to visit his own brother when his father was looking after both his wife and son.

**A few days later**

"Charlie take it easy, you only just got out of the hospital you are recovering from major surgery." Shouted Alan as he followed his son into the house,

"Did you tell Don, I was home from the hospital?"

"I will phone him when we get inside then I will make you some lunch, your mom will be home from the doctors' in about an hour and a half so she can keep an eye on you as I need to go back to work in ½ hour." Alan finished, as he chivvied Charlie up the stairs and into bed. Once Charlie was settled he dutifully phoned Don and then made his younger son a sandwich dropped it off in Charlie's room and then left for work as he only had the morning off to pick up Charlie.

Margaret arrived home, about 1 hour later and went to check on her sleeping son; Charlie looked fairly peaceful lying on his bed with a notebook flipped open on the bed next to him. She really wanted to tell someone the good news that her test results were looking up and the doctor was hopeful that maybe the cancer was going into remission. She thought though that she should let her son sleep otherwise he would be frightfully crabby when he woke up.

Margaret was surprised to see her older son arrive at the door just after 5pm, Alan had said Don was very busy at work and that was why he couldn't visit Charlie in the hospital though she knew that Don could be busy one day and then completely free the next that was just the nature of Don's Job. She greeted her son at the door, asked him if he wanted anything to drink and then accompanied him up to see Charlie who was now wide awake and sitting up working on some sort of Maths equation. When Charlie saw Don he acted as if his stomach was still really sore and held the spot where his stitches were as if he were still in agony rather than just a little stiff and sore.

"How are you feeling Charlie?" asked Don, slightly worried at how his brother was holding his stomach and looked still in a lot of pain.

"Well I did just have major surgery, how do you think I feel." Replied Charlie, teasing his brother a little

"Charles Edward Eppes that is no way to behave, your brother has found time in his hectic schedule to come visit you and you pretend to still be ill when only a few hours ago you were trying to convince your dad that you should be allowed back to work tomorrow." Margaret butted in, annoyed that her son was behaving badly in her opinion.

Charlie apologized for the way he had acted, but said it was only meant to be a joke not anything to be taken seriously. Margaret left her sons to it and went to start preparing dinner as Alan would be home fairly soon and she wanted to have dinner ready now that the entire family was home.


	7. Go Karting

**Go-Karting**

_**Dear Charlie,**_

_**We were wondering whether we could come stay with you for a few days next month as we are flying over to Seattle and couldn't get a direct flight at this short notice so were wondering if we could stop over in LA for a few days and then fly on to Seattle.**_

_**If you give us some floor space we will be fine, we will pay for any food we eat and any other extra things. We hope this is ok and we will send you our flight details if the plan goes ahead.**_

_**From, **_

_**Sarah, Alex and Catriona**_

_**Xx**_

_**S, A&C,**_

_**Dad says that he would love for you to come and stay with us for a few days, why are you coming to Seattle? Dad says that you don't have to pay for anything and there will likely be enough beds or couches as there is the bed in Don's old room and a couch downstairs as well as an old couch in the garage. We also have an old camp bed somewhere as well. If you send us your flight details then we will pick you up from the airport. Why is it just the 3 of you?**_

_**Charlie**_

So it was all set up, Alan would pick the 3 teenagers up from the airport and then take them home, Charlie would be home 3 and then they would plan what they were going to do for the three days that they were staying in LA before flying over to Seattle to see Alex's grandparents, who were paying for Sarah and Alex's trip as they wanted to see their grandson and meet his new girlfriend.

"I'm Home!" Shouted Charlie as soon as he opened the door to the craftsmen's house just after 3 o'clock,

"Charlie, we are in here," replied his father who was sitting in the living room,

Sarah got up and hugged the young maths professor, she couldn't abide this whole shaking hand thing, she was wearing a red t-shirt with Team Montague on it and denim shorts, Charlie presumed the t-shirt was a joke of the whole Twilight "Team Edward" "Team Jacob" thing.

"Sarah, you really should stop hugging everyone all the time, some people don't like getting hugged and your boyfriend might get jealous," Alex said, slightly tongue in cheek. He was wearing a grey hoodie with Supreme Sabreurs on the front and _The names Coleman, Captain Coleman _on the back; he also seemed to have prayer beads around his neck.

Charlie and Catriona laughed, while Sarah stared daggers at her boyfriend. Alan trying to defuse the situation by asking who wanted drinks. Everyone agreed as it was a really hot day; they also decided to move out to sit in the pretty sunshine. They pulled out the garden furniture and relaxed drinking homemade lemonade and eating chocolate biscuits. Alex disappeared into the house for a minute saying he had to get something; he returned not carrying anything which confused everyone but they presumed he must have gone to put sun-cream on, he then walked over to Sarah and knelt down in front of her and pulled out a small dark green box from his cargo pant shorts, he opened it up and asked Sarah if she would marry him. She giggled and replied that though she was taken slightly by surprise of course she would marry him. Alex placed the small gold ring with an emerald, onto her ring finger and then he kissed her.

"Well, that was a surprise. It kind of spoils my plan; I can hardly take you Go-Karting, the night you get engaged." Charlie said,

"I don't know; it might be nice to re-visit our childhood with a nice trip to the track." Sarah replied, admiring the ring on her finger.

"Ok; then tonight after dinner we will go down to the track, they have a special on at the moment, 8 till closing for $25 per person." Responded Charlie,

They have a wonderful dinner whipped up by Alan of fried potatoes and roast chicken, Don called in just after dinner to check with Charlie about what his plans for tomorrow were as he had a game tomorrow against the public defenders' team. Charlie says that he would love to come as long as his young friends don't mind. Sarah asks Don if he wants to come with them to the track. Don agrees that since he doesn't have an open case at the moment he would love to come.

They get to the track just after 8 and get all helmeted up, they decide to have a 15 lap race, winner takes the pot of the $5 dollars put in by everyone. Alex and Don seem to be the best and by about lap 8 they have pulled a considerable way ahead. They are vying for the front spot and so both try to get the best line into the final corner of the lap and end up crashing into each other. Neither are particularly hurt but it does put them off the track for a while and when they are finally put back on the track they are now almost too far behind to be real contenders for the front spot.

Charlie is now the new leader and after his slow start, has really got into his groove and is progressing very well now, by the 2nd to last corner he looks almost a shoe in to win. Just as he comes u to the corner Sarah pulls up beside him and so in an attempt to cut her off before going into the last corner he swerves into her, she though unfortunately avoids him and so he goes crashing into the tyre barrier flipping the cart over in the process.

Sarah having inadvertently taken out Charlie; wins the race and the $25 dollar cash prize. The other 3 finish the race over the next 2 minutes and once their karts are cleared away, due to it being almost 9:30 and thus with only 20 minutes till closing and particularly due to one of their members out of it, they decide to stop. They walk round the outside of the track to where one of the go-kart attendants is clearing away Charlie's mangled kart. Don being the first one to Charlie bends down to check on him.

Charlie seems to be slightly disorientated and is holding his left wrist to his chest; the marshal asks Don if he needs to call an ambulance. Alex says he thinks that Charlie is fine after giving the wrist a quick examination but he'll drive him to the ER to be on the safe side but it is probably isn't even a hairline fracture to his wrist and a mild concussion.

They help Charlie to the car and sit him in the back between Catriona and Sarah, Alex tells them to make sure he doesn't fall asleep and to check how coherent he is. They have to wait for just over an hour to be seen, they think this is pretty good considering it is Friday night. The attending physician probed at Charlie's wrist and checked over his vision and whether he has a headache. He sent him for an x-ray to be sure that it was only a sprained wrist and that there wasn't a tiny fracture. The x-ray showed no break; so the doctor put a brace on Charlie's wrist to give it some support. They also gave Don a list of things to look out for but say that Charlie looks fine, though he will be sore for the next few days.

Don takes Charlie and the 3 teenagers back home to the craftsmen house, he says if Charlie doesn't feel up to coming to the game tomorrow that is ok but he would love it if someone could come watch him. Charlie goes up to bed and Alex says he will check on him every couple of hours to make sure he hasn't fallen into a coma though it was barely a real concussion.

Charlie woke up the next morning aching all over, he saw Alex curled up on the chair in the corner of his room and wondered how on earth he had managed to fall asleep on it. He presumed he must have just been so tired that he would have managed to fall asleep lying on a bed of nails.

At the movement from Charlie's bed Alex wakes up and is pleased to see Charlie sitting up and asking him very coherently if he wants to go downstairs for a cup of coffee, Alex sleepily agrees. In the kitchen the two girls and Alan are making a lavish breakfast of pancakes, waffles, steak, croissants, harsh browns and the usual huge jug of coffee. Charlie sits down at the table while Alan brings him over the freshly cooked pancakes and a small mug of coffee. Charlie asks his dad if they have any painkillers as he has the startings of a headache and he doesn't want to miss Don's game so if he treats it now then it will be gone for the game. They all settled down to breakfast and Alan says he will come to the game as well as his golf game has been cancelled due to the granddaughter of his golf buddy having Croup and so he needs to babysit her while her parents are at work.

They tidy up the breakfast dishes and then all set off for Don's game, Don is warming up when they arrive, Charlie is surprised that the only person he recognises on Don's team is Paul, the guy who got Don to tryout for the team after coming round to the house to play poker last year. The other team were warming up on the other side and were a mixture of young fit looking men and some older much fatter men, which was a stark contrast to the FBI who were all young and fit or at least middle-aged and in good shape.

The FBI team had lost their starting 2nd basemen Kevin to a knee injury (a suspect had jumped off a balcony and Kevin had followed but landed off balance and sprained his knee) so as it was easier to replace Don at First-Base, Don was playing 2nd base today.

The match was going really well, they were up by the bottom of the 6th 4-1 with Don having got a home run. The top of the 7th comes around and it's the PD team to bat, first up is a tall, blond curly haired young man, who Sarah thinks looks incredibly like the guy of the Mentalist TV show. Justin who is pitching, starts off with a knuckle ball which the batter misses (STRIKE 1), he follows with a high ball which plunges down at the last second, he manages to hit it but it goes foul (STRIKE 2), Justin finishes it off with a fast ball pitching just above and to the right of the batter's knee, he swings and misses (STRIKE 3), Don hopes they will all be that easy to get out, he really wants a another chance to bat soon. The next batter comes in; he looks of Lebanese descent with a large nose and slightly greying black hair. Justin starts this time with a fast ball, but the batter is expecting it and swings it into the outfield where it is miraculously caught by Paul who dives to his right to catch it. The third batter comes in, he is slightly podgy looking with short brown hair and a brace on his shoulder which Don can see slightly poking out under his shirt, the batter is left handed a slight problem for Justin who is worse against left-handers. Justin is thinking though that all he has to do is get this guy out and then it is their chance to extend the lead some more. His first one pitches slightly to the left of the strike zone, the batter leaves it and it is called as a ball. Justin is annoyed, but composes himself and decides this guy is going to be harder to get out. The 2nd ball looks as if is going to the same place but curls at the last moment, the batter though adjusts his position and swings the ball so it flies over don's head but drops short of any of the outfielders. The batter gets to 2nd base where he seems to be rubbing his shoulder obviously that hit wasn't the best thing for it. Don asks the guy if he is ok, it is after all a fun weekend league. The batsmen replies "Yeah, I dislocated it a couple of months ago helped the cops take down a marine corporal, doctor said to take it easy but I couldn't wait to get back so I probably came back a little too early but oh well," the batter finished as the next batter came up to the plate, he was fairly tall with gelled blond hair and the skin that showed that he must have spend a great part of his life on the Californian beaches, he looked the youngest of all the players on the PD team, he looked barely out of law school and ready to change the world singly handedily. His youthfulness wasn't going to stop Justin though, he pitched the first one square into the middle of the strike zone and the batter hit it straight to Simon, who after catching it on the bounce threw it to Ken who was on 3rd base getting the batter out as he ran there. Don's team ran in, and got ready to bat.

Ken was first up to bat, he managed to hit it and get to first base, Simon was next up and unfortunately hit it straight to an outfielder, he walked apologetically back to the dug-out. Don was up next, somehow though the hit looked perfect he hit it foul (STRIKE 1), he hit the next one though and it was looking good, he set off managing to clear 1st base with incredible ease, flew through 2nd and 3rd and was on his way home to make it a 2nd homerun this match but in an attempt to avoid the catcher who was backing up to catch the ball, he slipped and felt suddenly a huge pain in his leg as he fell to the ground a few metres shy of the plate. Once everyone realised he wasn't going to get up anytime soon, Charlie followed closely by his Dad and the 3 teenager made their way onto the pitch to see what was wrong. Paul and the coach made it to Don first, Don was clutching at his lower leg and they realised they better get the medic on as this could be serious.

"Ok Don, I am going to put this splint on your leg to hold it in place until the ambulance (which had just been called for by a worried Charlie) gets you to the hospital to get it checked out." Said the medic who was a retired paramedic and was an old friend of Paul's so he came along to the FBI matches to lend his expert hand if it was needed with some supplies he had got cheap off a medical website. Charlie and Alan were worried as it would have to be pretty serious for Don not to be springing straight back up again. They also knew how annoying Don would be if he was not allowed to work.

The Ambulance arrived a few minutes later and loaded Don in the back, once he got to the hospital he was put in a cubicle where he waited (for far too long in his opinion) until a young pretty intern came to take down his details and do a preliminary evaluation on his leg. She said that she couldn't feel a break which was good in one sense but it didn't explain the pain so she (after checking with the doctor in-charge) sent him down for a MRI and an X-ray to be on the safe side.

Don was happy when after about an hour, the intern came back in saying she had got the results of the MRI and X-ray and they had found a tear in his calf-muscle, which would unfortunately mean rest and recuperation for the next month and crutches for the next 2 weeks, the intern with help from one of the nurses put a compression bandage on Don's leg which started at his ankle and went up to just below his knee, she told him that he would have to keep it elevated as much as possible and ice it for about 10 minutes two to three times a day. She told him to make an appointment with a physiotherapist as soon as possible to get some stretches to do. She told him not to put any pressure on his leg for the next few days but then to start building the strength up after that.

About 10 minutes after the intern had left, Alan and Charlie came in and helped Don up onto his crutches and then after a quick stop at the pharmacy for some Ibuprofen they set off for home. Don hobbled inside and was surprised to find a bowl of chips and dips lying on the coffee table and right next to it a chair and foot stool (that Don didn't remember them having) sitting with freshly plumped pillows, in prime position for watching things on the TV. Sarah and Catriona came out a few moments later carrying a plate of brownies and snicker doodles and set them down on the table as well and then noticing Don asked him if there was anything else he wanted as they were only too happy to help.

"No, I am fine for just down," replied Don sitting down and propping his leg up on the footstool. "When did we get this footstool, I don't remember it?"

"We got it when Charlie sprained his ankle, at the beginning of the year. It's been in the garage though as it gives Charlie something else to put his work on." Replied Alan who had returned from the kitchen with his trusty (incredibly useful due to having very accident prone sons) ice pack, Don placed it under his leg pressing it against his calf muscle. Alan went into the kitchen and made them all some sandwiches and made up a pitcher of pink lemonade. Sarah who had come into help got all the glasses and then found some jelly crystals in the cupboard and some sugar she got two plates out, she put some sugar and water in one and the green jelly crystals in the other she then set about dipping then glasses first into the sugar solution and then the jelly crystals so each glass had a green crystal rim. She put all the glasses on a tray and the other plate of sandwiches and her and Alan set them down with the rest of the food, telling everyone to help themselves to anything they wanted as and when they wanted it. He told them that Catriona had offered to make Dinner and they would not being having anything until about 8 so this had to last until then.

Charlie decided to put a movie on for them all to watch, he really wanted to watch _Rookie of the Year _but then remembered he had leant his copy to Mark Ingles one of his student for a study he was doing on the maths of baseball. They finally settled on _Mr Smith goes to Washington_ as it was a great movie and Alex and Catriona had seen it before.

They had a wonderful Dinner of Olives (stuffed with feta), chicken, linguine with a creamy garlicky sauce. It was very good, Charlie only just realised that the teenager were flying out the next day and so this was the last dinner he was going to share with them. His wrist was getting really sore (it had been 6 hours since he last took some ibuprofen), he was glad it was his left wrist as it meant it would be no problem writing on Monday.

**The next day**

Sarah told Don not to bother coming to the airport to see them off it was better he said goodbye to them here and rest his leg so he could at least go back to desk duty on Monday. That reminded Don he needed to phone the director to tell him that he was out of action though he presumed that Paul might well have beaten him to it but it was probably better if it came from him as well.

There was a tearful goodbye as Charlie and Alan hugged the 3 teenagers, saying goodbye and to remember to keep in touch and not to be stranger as they were always welcome. Charlie said to Sarah to warn him next time she was coming so he could take the necessary precautions like cancelling all slightly extreme sports, to avoid door and to get any of Don's baseball games rearranged so that she could not cause any more pain or discomfort to him or his family.

Sarah agreed to that with a small laugh, it was at least better than her mum's jokes those really were truly awful. It was finally time for them to board the plane to Seattle and tell Alex's grandparents the happy news about his engagement to Sarah.

Charlie was really sad to see them go but hoped maybe he would be able to stay whole for at least a few more months. Well preferably for a very long time but considering how clumsy he was that was unlikely.

_**Thanks for reading please please review so i know whether you loved it, hated it or i have typos my beta has left be as well so if you want to beta please tell me as well**_


	8. Horse riding

**Horse riding**

Charlie had decided to take Amita on a romantic horse trekking trip this year for Valentine's Day. He hadn't yet asked Amita if she would like to go as she had been very busy with marking the midterms of her senior classes but luckily today he was having lunch with her and so he would bring up the subject then.

Amita was slightly late and she came rushing into the café that was just off campus, she apologised for being late and then sat down and looked at the menu.

"Amita do you have any plans for Valentine's Day yet?"

"No, Charlie why are you going to whisk me away for a 10 day cruise in the Caribbean?"

"No, but I was planning to take you horseback riding, would you like that?" Charlie asked now worried that she wouldn't think it was exciting enough a thing to do.

"OH Charlie that sounds wonderful, I can't wait, where are we going?"

"Erm well there is this place I know, it's owned by a friend of mine from college, I went there once with Don a couple of years ago, it was really nice and I thought that I must go back sometime with you but never really got around to it. So I'll pick you up at 1pm on Saturday and we grab a quick lunch and then get to the place around 2-2:30?"

"That sounds wonderful Charlie, I can't wait for Saturday now, and I am really excited."

They finished their lunch and both went back to their classes, both of them dreaming about this Saturday and how wonderful it was going to be spending Valentine's Day riding through the wonderful countryside outside LA.

When Saturday came Charlie got up very early so he could sneak out the house without his father asking awkward questions. He went to Cal Sci to finish off the marking that he had meant to do the night before, but had got a migraine and so had decided to call it a night and do it in the morning before picking up Amita. Larry wondered into his office about an hour or so after Charlie arrived, having noticed his light was on.

"So what are you and the lovely Amita doing today?"

"I'm taking her to a ranch that a friend from college owns."

"Sounds nice, what time are you leaving to pick Amita up?"

"I said I would pick her up at around 1, so probably in an hour or so, so I am there in time, we are going to grab lunch on the way and then get to the ranch at around 2 o'clock hopefully."

Larry left Charlie to finish his marking and went to pick up the book he had left in his office which he needed as it had a very interesting bit which he needed for the article he was writing for a magazine on the Hig's Boson. Charlie realised that he was running slightly late so quickly left his office and managed to make it to Amita's house with a few minutes to spare. He ran up to her apartment door and got told the door was open when he knocked. He pushes the door open and Amita is standing drying her hair wearing a turtleneck sweater and proper jodhpurs. He is pleasantly surprised that she obviously liked riding if she has her own jodhpurs.

"I didn't know you owned your own riding stuff."

"Yeah, I used to ride when I was little, my uncle had a horse and we used to go up there for holidays though I have not ridden much since I came to Cal Sci. I thought you knew that and that was why you asked me to go riding with you."

Amita finished drying her hair and grabbing her coat locked the door and they made their way to Charlie's car. They grabbed a burger and fries from a café on the way; they got to the ranch just after 2 and were greeted by a large man wearing a t-shirt with different currency symbols on it, when he saw Charlie he grabbed him in a bear like hug squeezing all the air out of him.

"So Charlie, how you been?"

"...OK...thanks... could...you... let...go please"

"Sorry, it's just so nice to see you it's been far too long." Releasing him from the hug, "So who is your lovely companion? "Turning to face Amita,

"Amita, I work with Charlie at Cal Sci,"

"If I knew female professors were that good looking I might have become a teacher instead of opening up this place," he joked.

Archie led them over to a block of stables where 2 girls were tacking up the horses inside; Archie greeted the girls and asked them if Bullet and Romeo were ready. The taller of the two answered that they were ready and did he need them to help Charlie and Amita get on or did he want their help. Archie replied that they would likely be ok and he would shout if he needed any help.

Archie made his way over to two stables 3 or 4 further along, inside was a tall slender black horse with white socks and a white star on his forehead, the one next door was a beige colour with a black mane and tail and black socks. Archie led the black horse out first and helped Amita on using a mounting block which was standing next to the wall, once Amita was sorted with the stirrups the right length, he brought the other horse out which he told Charlie was called Bullet, Charlie's horse was slightly taller and fatter than Amita's and Amita commented that it suited him. Archie told them that if they followed the trail which was marked out by yellow markers, it would take them on a large circular trek through the forest and would take about 2 hours. He checked they had a mobile phone with them and gave them the ranches number so they could call if anything happened.

Charlie and Amita set off at a slow walk getting used to the horses as neither of them had been riding for a while and though Charlie would not admit he had not been riding in over 15 years. Once they got more into the woods they pushed their horses into a trot and went over a few small fallen logs. Charlie really wanted to impress Amita and so pushed his horse into a canter, it was all going great until a rabbit dashed out from a bush at the side of the trail causing Charlie's horse to spook and start bucking. Charlie managed to sit the first few bucks but after a particularly large buck Charlie went flying off hitting the ground with a thump. Amita caught up a few minutes later and saw Charlie lying on the ground and Bullet stopped a couple of 100 metres further up nibbling at the grass at the side of the trail. Amita dismounted and went over to check Charlie over; she was thankful that Charlie was conscious but seems to have some serious discomfort around his lower back. Amita got her mobile out of her pocket and calls the ranch to tell them what happened and asking their advice on what to do.

"Well Amita," Archie replies, "I'll call an ambulance to be on the safe side, keep Charlie as still as possible and I'll get Annie and Molly to ride over and pick up Bullet and Romeo. I'm sorry your ride was cut short." He called the girls over after hanging up on Amita, and then called an ambulance.

Amita tried to keep Charlie still and kept talking to him, the girls arrived first they clipped lead ropes to Romeo and Bullet's Bridles and let them back to the ranch telling Amita and Charlie the Ambulance would probably be there in about 20 minutes. The girls were right the paramedics got there just over 25 minutes later, they put the spinal board down and rolled Charlie onto it and then put the blocks on either side of Charlie's head to immobilise it, then worked out the best way to get Charlie out of the forest. They felt as he was now stable that possibly taking a slightly longer route which had less tree logs might be easier so went back the way Charlie and Amita had come but took a short cut by cutting across onto a different trail path. They loaded Charlie into the ambulance once they got out of the forest, and made their way to the nearest hospital which was less than 15 minutes away with the sirens on.

They got into the hospital ER and the doctor's rushed Charlie into the major accidents area, Amita was taken away by one of the nurses to answer a few questions on what had happened, the paramedics filled the doctors in on the important information and all of Charlie vital signs. The doctors asked Charlie where it was particularly sore; they were very precautious in case of serious spinal injuries. They carefully log rolled Charlie onto his side with 4 people supporting Charlie while another doctor prodded at Charlie's back, checking to see where was tender, she surmised that most of the tenderness was in the lower back in the lumber region of his spine, the amount of pain Charlie was experiencing was not a good sign. Horse riding is dangerous particularly if the rider was not wearing a chest and back protector as it was quite possible to break or damage vertebrae by falling from a horse.

They sent Charlie for various x-rays of different views of Charlie's spin as well as doing a MRI scan to get a 3-D picture of any damage caused so they could easily see how to treat whatever sort of injury Charlie had. Charlie and Amita felt the wait, for the images to come back, was longer than was really necessary and were starting to get very worried that the news was very bad and they were working out the best way of telling him that he was severely injured.

The doctor came in carrying a folder which presumably contained the x-rays and results of the MRI scan. "Well Mr Epps you have been very lucky," Charlie's heart rose so much with those 3 simple words. "There are no breaks in your spine that we can find and the MRI shows no serious damage to your disks. As far as we can tell you have some serious bruising and likely some bruised or strained ligaments in you back. Even though this isn't serious it does still cause a lot of pain, hence why you have been having all the discomfort. The best thing to do is to go home get some rest and put some heat and ice on your back to both relax the muscles and to reduce the swelling this should hopefully stop it hurting as the muscles at the moment are pulling your back as they are tense causing you added pain." Charlie and Amita both gave a sigh of relief that Charlie was going to be ok with some rest and recuperation. The doctor told Charlie that he would need to take it easy and they would give him some crutches to take the strain off his back for the next two weeks, he was not allowed to do any heavy lifting, no climbing ladders and no sports of any kind. The doctor removed the neck brace that was currently holding Charlie's head in place and helped him to sit up; checking that Charlie's movement was not too restricted and that they hadn't missed anything. He got a set of elbow crutches out of the store cupboard next door and after setting them to the right height, got Charlie up on his feet making sure that he could move around with them properly. He wrote Charlie a prescription for some painkillers and told Charlie that if he had any concerns to come in and they would see if anything was up. He finally gave Amita a list of things to look out for and told her that if she was worried about anything then just to give them a call.

Amita called Archie to ask him if he could bring Charlie's car down as she didn't want to leave him by himself, Archie said that was no bother and he was glad Charlie was reasonably ok. Archie arrived about 25 minutes later with his daughter driving his car not far behind. He told Charlie that if he wanted to come ride some other time then he would give it to him for free and would even throw in a home cooked meal cooked by his award winning wife Josephina. Amita helped Charlie into the passenger seat of the car and then drove the two of them back home.

When they arrived back at Charlie's house, they were surprised to see Don's SUV sitting in the drive way, they were sure Don had said he was very busy with a kidnapping case. Amita got Charlie's crutches out of the back of the car and then helped Charlie to his feet; he managed with only 2 or 3 grunts of pain as lightning bolts of pain shot up and down the lower part of his back. Charlie hobbled into the house and was greeted by his father who had come out of the kitchen when he heard the door open.

"Charlie, I thought you were going for a romantic day out, how did you manage to hurt yourself?" asked Alan, with a note of desperation in his voice.

"Well the horse bolted and I fell off, I have been in the ER for 4 hours and had an uncomfortable hour drive back and would rather just go lie down that be lectured," replied Charlie, who was feeling slightly drowsy from the painkillers and having been stuck in A+E on his back for hours.

Amita signalled that she would explain what had happened once they had got Charlie settled. Don who had come out of the kitchen at that point, helped Charlie to get settled onto the couch putting pillows behind his back and getting him reasonably comfortable, he disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a hot water bottle and an ice pack which he gave to Charlie, saying he didn't know which would be better.

Amita followed Alan and Don into the kitchen while Charlie settled down to watch TV, Alan poured Amita a glass of wine and got Don another beer.

"So what happened?" asked Alan,

"We were riding along, Charlie started showing off cantering off, I presume the horse spooked at something and Charlie fell off. I caught up a few minutes later and saw Charlie lying on the ground and the horse munching away further up. Got off and checked Charlie over, when I realised this wasn't him just lying a bit stunned but otherwise ok, I phoned back to the ranch and then they called an Ambulance." Conveyed Amita, "They took Charlie off to hospital where they x-rayed and scanned his back, we were getting quite worried by this point that Charlie wasn't going to be ok, that it was something seriously wrong, it felt like an age before they came back and told us it was just bruising and muscle strain and he would be very sore but ok in a couple of weeks."

"Well at least he is ok, I did think it was getting late and you should be back by now," Alan said, "Do you want me to fix you something to eat, we ate a while ago but there is leftovers I could heat up or frozen pizza I could cook for you or whatever."

"I wouldn't want to put you out; I can fix myself something when I get home, its fine." Replied Amita,

"It's no trouble, why don't you go check on Charlie and I will fix you both something to eat" Alan insisted.

Don and Amita went over to check on Charlie who had managed to fall asleep in the oddest position, one leg was on the coffee table the other resting on the arm of the couch and his head resting on the other arm, Amita decided that she better wake him up as he would be even stiffer in the morning if he stayed in that position. Charlie woke with a start and wished he hadn't as he jarred his back, Amita and Don apologised and then told him that Alan was making him something to eat as he needed to eat to be able to take his painkillers. Charlie nodded in agreement and asked if maybe Don could help him to bed, and he could eat up there. Don agreed and while Don helped Charlie up to bed, Amita helped Alan finish heating up the leftover vegetable lasagne and got Charlie some orange juice to take his painkillers with. They took the food up to Charlie who was more comfortably settled in bed with some of the throw cushions from the couch downstairs probing him up. He finished up the lasagne and juice and then they left him to get some well needed sleep.

**Nearly a week later**

Charlie hobbled into his classroom to teach his first class of the day, he hadn't taken much convincing to take a few days off when he woke up incredibly stiff on the Sunday. It was now Thursday and he was feeling much better though his back still ached and he was very stiff but thought he better get back, he was so grateful for the crutches which were taking much of the strain of his injured back. Millie had said he didn't have to come back in yet, but he had said to her that he needed to; particularly as watching daytime telly was getting rather boring by now.

Charlie sat down in the swirling office chair which was sitting handily at the front of class (he silently thanked Amita for putting it there), when his class came in a few minutes later they were surprised to see the crutches as they thought Professor Eppes had been ill and that was why he hadn't been in to teach them the past few days. Charlie pushed himself to the front of the class once everyone had arrived.

"I'm sorry for being off the past few days, I had an unfortunate accident at the weekend, a horse decided it was tired of having someone ride it all day and decided to buck me off, so instead of spending a romantic valentine's day with my girlfriend I spent it in the ER getting poked and prodded. I hope you forgive me for not being here."

Charlie set about teaching the class, he handed out some questions and then tried to navigate his way between the desk still in his office chair, when he reasoned this wasn't very practical he got his crutches which had been resting on the blackboard and made his way using those. He met up with Larry at Lunchtime, Larry was surprised to see Charlie hobbling towards him as he had not heard about his friend's unfortunate accident, Charlie quickly explained what had happened and they settled down at the nearest table and Larry offered to go get Charlie's lunch so he could just sit and take the weight of his back.

He was just about to call his dad to pick him up, when he got a call on his mobile from David,

"Charlie, it's David, Don's been in an accident ...well he has been shot"

Starting to panic, "Is he ok?" asked Charlie,

"Erm... yeah, he will be they are checking him over just now, they think it's probably missed everything vital in his shoulder but they are taking some x-rays to be on the safe side."

"How did he get shot?"

"We were going back to check up on the little girl that got kidnapped last week, ask her and her family some follow up questions when we got there we saw a man in a clown mask taking the mother out at gun point, when Don tried to stop him he turned his weapon on Don firing a shot into his shoulder, we got the guy though, we didn't even have to use lethal force."

"Have you called Dad yet?"

"Yeah he is on his way here now, do you want me to come pick you up or taking you home, the doctors seem to think Don will be ok."

"Yeah, can you pick me up and take me home, it will be easier just to go home, I'm sure dad will bring Don back to the house and I would rather not stand in an ER again so quickly.

Alan brought his elder son home; he couldn't believe both his sons had managed to injure themselves in less than a week. Charlie greeted them at the door and asked Don if he was trying to steal his thunder getting injured as well. Was he not going to let his little brother get the attention for at least a few more days? Don couldn't think of a witty response so said nothing instead. They settled down to dinner which Charlie had made. It was surprisingly good; Don even managed to eat it one handed, his other arm being held in a blue sling, after dinner they watched the ice-hockey game which was a girls' college game, Don didn't know they televised girl's ice hockey. Alan thought as he sat there, that he was glad that both his sons were sitting there fairly intact and he hoped they would stay this way so he would not being going to anymore hospitals in the near future. He knew he would never be that lucky though.


	9. Internet

**Indigo Internet**

_This story starts ½ way through the episode Primacy, so obviously contains major spoilers for that episode, I have changed things slightly but obviously if you haven't seen it you might well not want to read this as it might spoil the episode._

_The story starts with Amita and Charlie in Charlie's office. They are trying to find a real person belonging to the Shadow Hound Brigade, as all the aliases they have found so far are fake. They are going through the list of the members and Amita is trying to "play them"_

Amita and Charlie are talking while Amita plays Primacy, trying to find a person to "play" so they can find a real person behind the Shadow Hound Brigade. Amita tells Charlie that that person is not online either; Charlie goes over to the board and scores that name off and tells Amita to try "Spectre".

Charlie's phone goes off but Charlie looks at the Caller ID and doesn't answer, "Ruby wants me to turn up early, so they can put make-up all over my face."

Amita responds laughing, "You would look cute with eyeliner,"

Charlie replies, "Thanks," trying to steer the subject back to a more interesting topic, "So are you going to move in or not?"

Amita doesn't answer as Spectre comes online and wants to battle to take control of the transport station. Charlie tries to track the IP address, Amita is glad that they have finally found a real life member of the Shadow Hound Brigade. Charlie phones Colby to ask him if he can find out if there is an identity to go with Spectre's avatar. Colby manages to track the identity through the Primacy database to a Frank Regert. Colby tells them to keep Spectre online so that they can go catch Spectre.

Colby and Megan make their way to Regert (Spectre)'s house, they burst in and are met with a smell of burning flesh and a wall of screens, all connected to the laptop which still seems to be playing Kali (Amita) by itself. They phone Charlie to tell him that Spectre is dead, which Amita says is impossible as he is still playing her.

Amita (Kali) continues to battle Spectre and Kali beats him so she steals his mojo bag; she transports herself away and opens the bag which pops out 3 numbers:

**341114**

**0600**

**1182902**

Charlie and Amita translate these to the GPS coordinates 34.11 14N_118.29 02E and the time 6:00am, Megan looks the coordinates up and finds out that it is the Northgate Dam. Megan says they will check it out the next morning, to which Amita responds that they will need Charlie and hers help; they couldn't solve the puzzles on the rooftop. She says they could be at the site for ages and not find anything. Megan reluctantly agrees, she doesn't want Charlie and Amita to be involved but she agrees that it is better that they solve it quickly and it is unlikely they will be in too much danger and Colby will be able to protect them anyway.

When they to the Dam, Colby tells Charlie and Amita to stay behind him, they all look around.

"Remember the GPS has 15 feet of uncertainty with every location," says Charlie trying to find anything useful but coming up blank.

"So Amita can you see anything with your X-ray vision?" quips Colby.

"With my naked eye I see a misaligned arrow, which is a classic ARG clue, there is something down there as well," pointing down to the floor of the dam.

"What about that pile of rocks, could that be a clue?" asks Charlie.

Amita goes to the ladder to climb down to the floor of the Dam to investigate the clues; Colby pushes her gently to the side and climbs down first, so he could protect the 2 consultants. Just as Charlie is ½ way down the ladder a warning siren goes off, Charlie frantically climbs back up the ladder. Colby pushes Amita back up the ladder as water pores out of the dam, Amita manages to get back up the ladder but Colby is swept away by the flow of the water.

Charlie and Amita rush to the bridge that overhangs the dam further up, Colby manages to grab onto the mesh part on the underside of the bridge and hangs on for dear life. Charlie gets to the bridge and offers Colby his hand so that he can pull him back up. Colby grabs on but slips because his hand is wet. Colby is in a very precarious position swinging from one hand with very fast flowing water underneath. Charlie wipes the water off his hand and then proffers his hand again to Colby for a 2nd attempt at saving him, this time Charlie gets a better grip on Colby's hand and it looks like they are going to manage to pull it off with Charlie's surprisingly superior upper body strength. Just as Colby manages to get a grip on the bridge with his feet; his boot slips on the wet surface pulling on Charlie's arm, Charlie emits a small squeal as he feels his arm coming out of the socket at his elbow. Colby falls back down, Charlie grabs Colby's arm with his other hand and Amita hearing the squeal comes to help grab Colby; together they manage to pull Colby back up onto dry ground.

They all lie there for a few minutes just catching their breath, then Amita realising that she has two injured men on her hands, she gets out her phone and calls 911. An ambulance comes and patches Colby up, stitching up the cuts on his head and bandaging Colby's grazed hands. The paramedic takes one look at Charlie's arm and tells him that he will need to take a trip to the hospital to check if it is just dislocated or whether there are ligament or nerve damage as Charlie is having tingling pains up and down his forearm.

Charlie gets to the hospital and is seen fairly quickly which surprises Charlie, the doctor feels Charlie elbow and tells him that his elbow has relocated wrong by itself so it is pinching the nerves, they are going to have re-dislocate it so that they can relocate it properly. They tell Charlie to lie down on his stomach with his arm hanging down off the side of the bed, they numb his arm with a local anaesthetic and then pull his arm out of the socket, and the doctor then rocks his arm back into the socket.

The doctor tells Charlie to wait until the anaesthetic has worn off, hopefully this time the ulnar nerve won't be pinched this time to be on the safe side they are going to do a MRI to check on the nerves and ligaments.

After all the checks come back as normal, they send Charlie home with strict instructions to rest his arm as much at all times, keep it in the sling and not to do anything too physically arduous until he comes back for his check-up in 2 weeks time, where they will reassess the situation. After being discharged from the hospital, Charlie gets a taxi to the FBI building so he can help Don and the team out.

"How are you feeling Buddy?" asks Don as Charlie comes in,

"My arm hurts but I'll be ok," replies Charlie giving a small smile to back this feeling up.

"We could set up a mirror site to lure Spectre into, we set up a false clue which sends Spectre to a location we chose and then catch him," suggests Charlie rubbing his arm.

"So we need to contact Wolftrack and get them to shut the server down while we do it."

"No, it's like a train at a train station, when we see Spectre's train we redirect it to our mirror site, while we let everyone else through to the actual site."

"Ok, how long will it take you to set this site up?" asks Colby,

"Erm... not too long, if you bring me 6 or 7 computers, Amita and I can set it up in the next hour or so," replied Charlie, readjusting the sling that was holding his arm immobile.

Charlie grabs Don's arm as the others file out to get everything set up for the mirror site, when all the others have left, Charlie tells Don that he doesn't want Amita doing anymore field work, she can work in the office on the case but she can't help them anymore in the field.

They set up the site, and set up their own characters, Charlie tells them to hit lots of buttons as this will make the site look active and full of people. They wonder around waiting for Spectre. They find a huge wall, Amita tells them there is something behind it, Anthony (the guy they found on the roof at the beginning of the case) cuts the wall down, and they find Spectre behind the wall. Spectre starts to talk to Amita in game chat,

"Kali, surprised to see you. Were you unable to decipher the clue you stole from me?" asks Spectre

"I am working on it," replies Amita

"I want my mojo back" responds Spectre

"Come and get it!" says Amita forcefully

Megan asks if you can trace in-game chat to which Charlie desponds with a sharp shake of his head which jostles his arm causing him to voice a small yelp of pain. They battle Spectre, he is very strong, it is not looking good but then that is the aim to let Spectre win but then again they have to make it look believable. Amita's character Kali has her back to Spectre and so when Megan sounds watch out, Kali swings round stabbing Spectre dead centre. Amita is shocked and keeps apologising that she did not mean to kill Spectre, she asks what they should do, which Larry suggests is nothing, they have to still make it look believable why would they try to contact someone that they have just killed in a duel, it goes against logic. Charlie then remembers that he has to go to his stupid interview, Amita tells him to stay safe and enjoy it. Charlie phones Alan to pick him up and take him to the interview as he is not allowed to drive with his injured arm.

As they are driving to the interview Charlie asks Alan if Amita can move in with them, Alan jokingly asks if that means they are getting married. Charlie looks indignantly at his dad and his about to respond when Alan laughs telling him that he knows that is not how things happen now-a-days. As they pull into the car park, Alan tells Charlie that he has been re-considering moving into a condo, which might make it easier for everyone.

Charlie gets to the TV-studio where the make-up people set about making Charlie ready for the interview; they even try to sort his unruly hair. Charlie puts his jacket back on, hanging over his injured arm. Charlie then gets told to go sit in the chair next to the interviewer a very pretty lady in her early 30s, who gets the nod from the camera-man and starts the interview;

"We are joined today by Dr Charles Eppes from Cal Sci; he has written the 1st math book you are going to want to read, the 'Attraction Equation'. Can you tell us how to find a mate using math Dr Eppes."

"You can call me Charlie," then remembering he is meant to be explaining the book and not flirting with the interviewer, "I developed a new kind of math. It is sort of calculus on human relationships, based on decision theory. It can mathematically help people chose a better partner by working out which couples have the best chances at success."

"Can you tell me why I keep picking the wrong guy?"

"You might need to put some logic into you romantic equations." His mind still on the case, hoping that Amita will be ok and that they will catch 'Spectre',

"Can you help me with that," flirts the interviewer, and then changing tact asks, "Are you spoken for Dr Eppes?"

"Yeah, I am dating a very beautiful woman; I hope she is watching because she is an incredible inspiration to me."

"So what happened to your arm? _Charlie_," asked the interviewer putting huge emphasis on the Charlie.

"I dislocated my elbow saving my friend's life," replied Charlie trying not to blush,

Taking the fact that Charlie is blushing as a sign that he is not telling the whole truth she then asks, "Was it really that embarrassing that you can't tell us,"

"Seriously, I saved my friend's life from being drowned yesterday at a Dam."

"Well I suppose they were very lucky to have such a good friend that would safe them though it caused him much pain and distress," the interviewer adds with a sly little smile.

The interview continues on in the same sort of fashion with the interviewer asking what gave him the idea to write this book and did anyone else apart from Amita inspire him while he was writing the book. At the end of the interview Charlie finds out Amita has gone to meet Spectre despite Don's assurance that Amita would not be used as bait in this situation again.

Charlie is furious that Don put Amita in danger again; he insists that Alan drives him to meet Amita and the FBI. Alan tells Charlie to calm down or he is not going to drive Charlie anywhere. Alan says that Don wouldn't force anyone to do anything they didn't want to do, Charlie should know this. Charlie knows how much of a moral conscience Amita has and how she would certainly want 'Spectre' brought to justice for what he did.

Once Charlie has managed to calm down enough to satisfy Alan, they get into the car and drive towards McArthur Park. Charlie gets there just as the FBI storm the building, they manage to capture and restrain Gary Meyers (Spectre) before he hurts Amita. Amita comes running ahead of everyone else straight into the arms (well arm) of Charlie who tries to console her as best he can with only one arm. The ambulance on the scene wants to check Amita out even though she says she is ok, she says her neck is a bit sore where Spectre grabbed her but nothing some ice and rest won't fix.

Charlie and Amita go back to Cal Sci to pick up the marking they need to do, Charlie is surprised just how much he has to do, and with his right hand out of commission due to his injury it is going to take even longer. Larry comes by to see whether Amita and Charlie had made it back yet. Larry asks Charlie if there is any way that Charlie could maybe help him move a couple of piles of books to the library for him, as he is donating all his books to the library in a vain attempt to declutter his office. Charlie wittily replies that he needs his one good arm for comforting Amita. Larry does find this funny but is still faced with the same problem he was in the first place, it will take him the rest of the day to move all his books. The answer to his prayers arrives in the form of Alan, coming to see if Charlie wants a lift home yet. Alan offers to help Larry move all his books to the library as it will take less than ½ the time that way. Amita says she will drive Charlie home as they need to further discuss their game theory variables regarding what is the best way of Amita moving in.

Amita and Charlie drive home together, they discuss all the variables they decide maybe the best option is for all 3 of them to live together in the house. They get home to the Craftsmen and enjoy the fact that they have the house all to their selves until Alan gets home after helping Larry.


	10. Jag

**Jag**

_This is set at some point in the year leading up to the Pilot of Numb3rs so before Charlie started consulting for the FBI, I have taken liberty slightly with details if I couldn't find information to back it up._

Charlie had just finished off marking his junior year advanced calculus class (which he was covering for this year for a teacher who was off on maternity leave); when his phone rang, he was surprised that his brother was calling him, his brother never called him unless he needed help on a case and as far Charlie knew Don was in New York.

"Don, I thought you were away in New York on a course and weren't allowed to use your cell phone during it."

"Yeah Buddy, but the course finished early, the lectures wife just went into labour. He needed to fly back to LA to be with her. So I have until Monday off, I was wondering if you wanted to go hiking in the woods maybe camp out for a few days. Only if you are free of course, if you are doing something with Larry or have a lot of marking to do that's fine. I just thought it might be nice if we caught up and just hung out..."

"Woh Don! Yeah I would love to go with you, so when are you getting back from New York. I am almost finished here so whenever you get back we can leave almost straight away."

Charlie heard a scuffling outside and then his office door burst open and Don exploded in; closing his cell phone as he came in. "Well I am glad you agreed to go with me otherwise I rushed home for nothing,"

Embracing his brother, "Nice surprise, do you want to leave now or tomorrow morning? We could leave in about an hour I suppose that should be enough time to pack and buy enough food for the weekend."

"If we leave within the hour, we should be able to set up camp before it gets dark. I'll get the provisions; if you pack the two packs. I think mine might still be under my old bed at home. There are still jeans, shirts and stuff in the wardrobe from Christmas, so just shove a few off them into the bag and I'll bring the food to the house. We can put them in before we leave"

"OK, let's get to it. The quicker we get going the quicker we'll get there,"

Charlie was getting slightly too excited to be going camping with his brother though the last time Charlie could remember them going camping had been Don's 13th birthday where his parents had forced Don to take Charlie with him and his friends. That time had ended up with Charlie trying to walk home and his extremely worried parents picking him up and scolding him for being so stupid.

Charlie and Don reached the campsite just after 7:15, and set up camp shortly after. They build up a fire from the wood they found lying around; Charlie emptied out the food which Don had bought, he realised that he had not actually looked at the food which Don had bought. He laughed when he found gram crackers, chocolate spread and marshmallows; he had not had smores since he was a little kid. He was touched that Don remembered he liked his Smores with chocolate spread rather than actual blocks of chocolate.

He found pre-boiled potatoes ready to be fried and boil in the bag noodles and a bottle of soy sauce. All Charlie's favourite camping foods. They got out the pots and pans and set about making tea for themselves, then sat back to watch the sunset eating their plates of quick cook foods. After Dinner they talked about life, Charlie told Don about this new student at Cal Sci from Delhi, she was apparently the most beautiful woman Charlie had ever seen. Don thought this was hilarious as Charlie had rarely had contact with woman of his own age so it wouldn't be hard for this girl to be the most gorgeous woman in Charlie's estimation. Don loved the fact that they were having the real brotherly chats which they had missed growing up due to the turbulent life Charlie had had of maths and more maths from the age of 3.

They talked late into the night about what had happened at the conference and realised that the agent who had had to fly back to see the birth of his child was the husband of the professor Charlie had been covering on maternity leave, odd how small the world was. Don built up the fire before they settled down to sleep, Charlie cuddled down to sleep staring up at the stars which are invisible in the middle of Pasadena but clear as day up in the hills. He remembered an old tradition a student of his told him about that they used to choose a star every time his family went camping, then named it that star becoming that member's lucky star for the duration of the trip.

They were both surprised how quickly they fell asleep after they stopped talking, the fire started sputtering, a bit of discarded wood caught fire (they had decided to discard it due to it having nails in it and they didn't want hot metal in their fire). Charlie woke up at the noise and afraid that the forest around them or their sleeping bags might catch fire, he tried to put the bit of wood out by jumping up and down on it (having put his boots back on). One of the nails from the bit of wood pierces Charlie's foot. The pain causes him to hop around and look like a complete idiot.

"Charlie, what are you doing Buddy?" said Don trying not to laugh at Charlie not realising that there was something seriously wrong with Charlie.

"Don! I have a bit of wood stuck in my foot! It ******* hurts!" replied Charlie still hopping around "It's not funny, can u please help me here!"

Getting up out of his sleeping bag Don helps Charlie to sit down and pours cold water on the bit of wood to try to cool the foot down, then gets a dressing out of the First Aid bag. He removes the piece of wood, and then takes off Charlie's boot and sock and puts the dressing on his foot to stop the bleeding. Don doesn't like the fact that the skin looks quite charred/burned and there is already pus coming out of the wound.

Don packs up the sleeping bags and the rest of the equipment; he then wonders how he is going to get all the stuff and Charlie back to the car. Don puts a supportive bandage to hold the dressing more firmly in place and then Don helps Charlie load his backpack onto his back and then Don helped him up and they hobble their way back to parking lot, stopping every so often to regroup and recover. It was a slow process but they managed to make it back despite the lack of light and without any further incident.

Don drives Charlie to the hospital to get his foot checked out, obviously a charred foot isn't high priority in a busy hospital at 4am, they have to wait for quite a while before a nurse come to get Charlie. Nurse Andy examines his foot and doesn't like the look of it, he orders some x-rays and says that likely outcome will be surgery to remove the dead tissue and investigate if any tendons or nerves have been damaged. He also gives Charlie a tetanus jag as nails are certainly not the cleanest of things and it is better to be safe than sorry. Charlie doesn't think he has ever seen such a huge needle but he has to appear like it doesn't bother him, he can't have his big brother think he is scared of a little needle (even if it is a huge). The X-ray shows that the nail has caused the bone to shatter, so it is not good news, Charlie is scheduled for surgery later that day. They say they are not sure how long Charlie will be incapacitated for until they get in and have a look around.

The surgeons remove all the dead fatty tissue and are pleased that the nerves look more bruised rather than burned and they manage to repair the damaged tendons. They remove the bone shards and put a pin in to stabilise the bone back in alignment. When Charlie wakes up they tell him it will be 3 weeks in a wheelchair to give the nerves and tendons a chance to recover and then a further 2 weeks in a walking cast to get the mobility back whilst still providing protection to the damaged bone, ligaments and nerves.

Charlie gets out on the Tuesday morning and is very glad to be home though wishes he could work, he knows he will go stir crazy being confined to a chair for 3 weeks. Alan says he will move one of Charlie's blackboards lower so that Charlie can write on it whilst he is stuck in the chair. Charlie phones Cal Sci to tell them that it will be 3 weeks before he is back at work but he will get Larry to bring all his marking home and will write plans for all the classes so they can be easily covered by anyone, not necessarily a mathematician.

Don calls Larry and asks him to come over so that they can start planning Charlie's Birthday; it has to be extra special now due to how bummed Charlie is about being stuck in the house for 3 weeks. Larry comes over and suggests they play some friendly Texas Hold-em, not for money, jelly beans maybe. Charlie finds it hilarious when Larry produces a huge jar of jelly beans, they decide

Green beans are $5

Yellow beans are $10

Pink beans are $25

Purple beans are $50

Black are $100

And White beans are $500

They sit through in the garage; Charlie is surprised that his Dad actually has moved one of his chalk boards lower down so he can work on it from his chair. They start the game and Larry is surprised that Charlie is giving him a real game of it; you would think the 3 time Cal Sci Poker Champion would be able to beat someone who has never played before. Charlie is surprised how much fun he is having; he has found another game where his mathematical skills might just give him an advantage. As he once said to his dad when he was 10, when Alan had questioned how important maths was, "We all use math every day, to predict weather, tell time, handle money. Math is more than formulas and equations, its logic, its rationality; it is using your mind to solve the biggest mysteries we know."

Don and Alan set about phoning all of Charlie's friends and inviting them to his party, they were trying to plan the best party, originally they were going to just go out to a little pizza place that they all loved, then maybe come back to the house and have a couple beers and watch the game. Larry said they were going to have a small party at school with a couple of his colloquies, maybe a few grad students. Larry had the idea yesterday why didn't they throw Charlie a like the ones you have when you are a little kid, with cake, ice-cream and jelly, party games and even maybe party hats and balloons. Alan and Don thought this would be great especially as Charlie hadn't really had that many birthday parties growing up due to him not having many friends as he was from a young age in classes with kids 3, 4 even 5 years older than him.

They decided to make the party a surprise; they are going to tell Charlie that the 3 of them are going to have a nice quiet family dinner. Larry said he would make sure that all his friends knew that it was a surprise and to not let it slip to Charlie what they were planning. They phone everyone and are pleasantly surprised when the great majority of the people they phone are able to come on such short notice, Larry had suggested they invited Amita the new Grad-student from Delhi, who Larry had heard had asked if Charlie could be her thesis advisor.

Charlie comes through with his "winning" lying on his lap and Larry behind who seems to be teasing Charlie about the way he got injured. Don and Alan are surprised they have never seen Larry tease anyone let alone Charlie. They continue this playful banter, Don tells Charlie about his and Alan's plan to have a nice quiet dinner.

On the day of the party, (as Don has taken the day of to send time with Charlie on his birthday), he invites Charlie over for a couple of beers and to watch last night's game. Which Don knows Charlie missed due to having to visit the emergency room yesterday as his foot had got infected, which wasn't that surprising due to the injury being caused by a nail, not the cleanest of objects. They had kept Charlie in over night to monitor how well the infection was clearing up. Don knew how annoyed Charlie would be to having to go back to the hospital particularly the day before his birthday. Charlie does beg the question why can't they just watch the game here they have beers in the fridge and Alan did record the game as he knew how much Charlie had wanted to watch it to test a theory he was working on for an article. Don has to think on his feet as it was true why make a mobily challenged man cross town to a cramped apartment. Don goes with the excuse that needs help choosing which of the 3 paints he likes to paint his living room walls with. Charlie is suspicious but gives Don the benefit of the doubt, he asks Don to come pick him up and then hangs up and goes to tell Alan that he is going out for a couple of hours to Don's.

Don buys three cans of paint n his way to pick Charlie up, Don is surprised how difficult a wheelchair is to fold up to put in a car and is so glad that in a couple of weeks Charlie will be fairly mobile again. Charlie asks him if they can stop off at the store to buy some pizza and stuff for lunch, though he does love beer as much as the next guy it isn't a very healthy to have for lunch without having anything else. Don battles to get the wheelchair unfolded again, they get some pizza and popcorn to have while watching the game.

Charlie is so glad that his theory work, he manages to finalise his equations and now only has to write up the expatiation part which should take too long particularly as he has so much free time at the moment. Don tries to slyly keep an eye on the time knowing he needs to get back to Alan's house around 5 as everyone is meant to be getting there about 4:30/4:45 so by 5, everyone should be there. They decide that the pale yellow will be the best for the wall out of the 3 paints; Don suggests they get back to Alan's so that Charlie can get ready for their meal tonight.

Don goes in first to alert everyone that Charlie is coming, they all hide like you do at childhood surprise parties, Charlie wheels in and is surprised that it is all dark in the house as he knows Don went inside only a few minutes ago and would have presumably turned the lights on when he inside. He is even more surprised when all his friends jump out from their hiding places. It's nice to think that so many people care enough to come to his party. He looks around and can't help but laugh at the fact that this looks exactly like a kid's party complete with a piñata and jelly and ice-cream.

They put some music on and Charlie mills around talking to everyone and thanking them for coming to his party. Don goes to speak to Larry and is introduced to Amita, he asks him when she came over from Delhi, to which Amita replies that she has never been to Delhi, her family are from Southern India but she was born over here and has not been to India. Don asks Charlie is he deliberately set him up to look like a fool in front of Amita to which Charlie replies he honestly thought that Amita was from Delhi, he can't remember who told him that detail but he was sure it was true. Charlie goes over and a nice long chat with Larry and Amita and finds out that everyone just assumed that she was from India, that she never told anyone that she was.

Alan tells everyone since this is his "little boy's" party they are going to play some party games they start with _pin the tail on the donkey_, Don and Charlie get into an argument over who's "tail" is closer to the X. Alan says they will settle it by a simple case of short straws, which Don wins, winning instead of the usual childhood prize, a bottle good quality beer. They tackle the piñata next; inside as well the bits of chocolate there are bits of paper with parts of an equation on them, which everyone has to piece together to solve the equation. The equation's answer when converted using a simple hexadecimal code _spells Happy 29__th__ birthday Charlie!_

The party is overall a success and everyone thinks it is terribly quaint it having the innocent and childlike theme which everyone loses to a greater or lesser extend as they get older but which Charlie still seems to have. Don sits that night with the beer he won and thinks how much he resented Charlie over the years and how hopefully now they are living in the same city again they can possibly put the past behind them and start a fresh.


	11. Keg

**Keg**

Charlie woke up to the sound of his phone ringing; he rubbed his eyes and answered the phone which was lying next to his bed, wondering why his head hurt so much.

"Charlie, Hey its Don! Are you busy today?"

"Erm, its Sunday right, no I think I was only planning to do some marking but that can wait. Why?"

"We have a fraud case; a guy has been ripping of the Governor's employees. He has apparently hacked into their server and charged the senior staff members' accounts for high ticket items which he has then sold, pocketing the cash. The problem is we can't catch him and I was wondering if you could give us a hand. Maybe come up with an algorithm or something. If you could give us anything really that would be much appreciated as we seem to have hit a brick wall."

"If you give me enough time to have a shower and have breakfast, then I could be with you in just over an hour." Charlie sleepily replied, "I'll see what I can do to help when I get there, is that quick enough for you?"

"Yeah, I'll see you then, thanks Charlie" replied Don seeming much happier than when he had phoned. Charlie hung up the phone and thought that maybe he would have to take some painkillers before he left as well as his head really hurt, he was nausea as well.

Charlie got out of bed and made his way slowly to the bathroom, he discovered after a few steps that it wasn't just his head that hurt it was also his right foot. He wondered what he had got up to last night that had resulted in his headache and sore foot. Once he got to the bathroom he took some painkillers and then had a long shower. Realising that he had been in the shower a bit too long and that he better get going as Don was expecting him soon, he quickly got out of the shower slipping slightly on the wet floor which did nothing for his foot which by now had started to throb despite the painkillers. He hobbled as best he could back to his bedroom hoping that his foot and headache would feel better once the painkillers had had a chance to take effect. He got dressed and made his way downstairs grabbing his car keys which were not where he usually left them on the table next to the door.

Charlie got into the car thinking that driving was possibly not the best of ideas when his foot hurt especially as by now the slightest pressure was causing shooting pains up his leg as though he had been electric shocked. Deciding that calling a cab would take too much time, he set off on his way to the FBI building as he was already running late. Charlie somehow managed to get to the FBI building in one piece though he had had some close shaves and had started using his left foot to work the brake which he was sure you weren't really meant to do.

Charlie hobbled his way to the elevator showing the guard his security badge on the way, he hit the button for the right floor and thinking he must phone Amita to wish her a Happy Birthday discovered that he must have left his phone at home in his rush to get here. The elevator tinged signalling he had reached Don's floor and Charlie limped his way over to Don's desk. Don was sitting at his desk sorting out various pieces of paper into their appropriate piles, he looked up when Charlie tapped him on the shoulder. Don motioned for Charlie to sit down at the desk next to Don's which was currently vacant. Don talked Charlie through the specifics of the case and Charlie decided how best to tackle this case. Charlie wasn't sure exactly which type of equation would be best suited to this type of problem as there were a lot of factors to consider.

Don left Charlie to come up with an idea while he went and chased down a possible link David had found between a known hacker and one of the junior staff who worked for the Governor, Don thought he might as well explore this avenue while Charlie did what he did best. Don came back about an hour later to find Charlie sitting with his right leg balancing on Don's chair. Don noticed that Charlie's right foot looked particularly swollen.

"Chuck what have you been doing to yourself, been skydiving again?" Don joked.

"I honestly don't remember, I woke up this morning to a blinding headache and then my foot started to hurt, I presume I must have hurt it last night but I can't remember anything I did last night after I left work." Charlie responded starting to worry what he had done. He had gone into work to finish some paperwork that he had got really behind on due to having helped Don out a lot the previous few weeks as Don had had a lot of cases that had really benefited from Charlie's help.

"Well you should probably get that foot checked out to be on the safe side, maybe you should phone Amita as well see if she can remember what you got up to."

"I would do but I left my phone at home," replied Charlie sounding slightly sad that he had been stupid enough to leave his phone at home.

"Well borrow mine, see if Amita can pick you up as well to take you to the hospital, I would do it but I really need to work on this case. Did you manage to write an equation yet?" Don responded feeling a bit bad asking Charlie if he had found anything when it was obvious that he was in a lot of pain.

"Erm, yeah I managed to make a rough equation adapting the one I did for you last year, it only needed slight tweaking. If you plug in the numbers of your suspects like this," Charlie showed him rewriting the equation with one set of the relevant numbers put in, "You should get a result, I'll keep working on it after I've phoned Amita and hopefully I get a result before she gets here otherwise I will show you or one of your analysts how to do it before I leave." Charlie said looking very happy that he had managed to come up with something so quickly. Don waited while Charlie phoned Amita, hoping to find out what Charlie had been up to last night.

"Amita, Hi its Charlie, could you tell me exactly what I did last night, as I seem to have drawn a blank" asked Charlie very embarrassed and slightly hesitantly.

Amita bursts into laughter, "Well Charlie," trying to control her laughter "you were at my 30th birthday party and you went to get the other Keg from in the kitchen which I had left on top of the cupboard, you sort of dropped it on your foot. You claimed it didn't hurt but I doubted that at least 10 gallons of beer falling on your foot wasn't going to have at least done some damage. Can you really not remember any of that?"

"That explains a lot, could you possibly give me a ride to the ER, my foot has started to hurt a little bit. I'm at the FBI." Charlie asked sheepishly.

"Yeah sure, I'll be there as soon as I can." Amita replied hanging up.

Charlie got back to work to help Don while he waited for Amita to arrive. He worked his way through the list or potential suspects. He then had an idea when they all drew blanks to check though the list of employees and relatives of employees to see if anything cropped up. Charlie was partly through that list when Amita arrived, Don came over and once Charlie had explained what he had to do Don set about to try to find the hacker. Amita helped Charlie up and to her car, she drove Charlie to the nearest ER.

Charlie had to wait for hours to be seen, when he finally got seen by a doctor, his foot was very swollen and was excruciatingly painful. The doctor sent him for X-rays, though he was pretty sure that the beer keg had crushed his foot. The doctor was shocked Charlie had managed to get through as much of the day as he had without collapsing due to the pain. Amita said she would stay with Charlie as she felt kind of responsible for his accident.

The X-rays showed that Charlie had crushed most of the bones in his foot and that he was going to need to have the bones pinned back together again. Charlie wasn't too happy that his drunken incident has caused him to have to have an operation and probably weeks in plaster. He also feared that he had looked like an idiot in front of Amita. The doctors sent him to orthopaedics to wait for his surgery, Amita went up to wait with him. Amita went to phone Don and Alan to tell them the results of Charlie's X-rays once Charlie was settled. Just after the orthopaedic doctor had been to assess Charlie, Alan arrived all in a panic as he couldn't believe that he didn't realise his son had a broken foot, what kind of dad doesn't realise that sort of thing. He should have known something had happened when Charlie staggered in at 4 in the morning.

Amita told Charlie that she would see him in a few hours once he was out of surgery, she bent down and kissed him. Charlie was wheeled away for the surgery which went as successively as they thought it could they pinned the bones together and put a brace so they could keep an eye on the stitches for the next few days then they would put it into plaster which he would have on for 6 weeks then they would review the healing and as long as everything went to plan, then he would be allowed to get the movement and strength back into it so that hopefully he would be back to fitting fit in 3 months.

2 days later Charlie was plastered and then discharged with strict instructions to rest and to take a few more days of work, when Charlie got home he phoned both his department head to tell him that he would be off for another 3 days then would be back, and Don to find out about the case and ask if there was any consulting he could do while he was convalescing. Don said there was nothing that he needed help with, though he had been asked by the NSA for Charlie's updated contact details as they needed his help and had heard that Charlie had bought a house so presumed he had moved. Don says that he told them that his brother hadn't moved and Don said he would bring over the sealed file he had been given.

Don comes over for dinner with Charlie and brings the file plus a series of old cold cases which the bureaus cold case division were wondering if they might benefit from Charlie's Math expertise. Charlie says that he will have a look through them and see what he can come up with. Don says that Charlie better be careful because if Charlie manages to solve the cases then the CC division might give him even more to do. Charlie jokes that there is no rest for the wicked. Don asks where their dad is as he presumed he would be here monitoring his youngest to make sure he stayed off his feet. Charlie replies that Alan was called away to look after Aunt Irene who has been taken into hospital due to problems with her gallbladder. Apparently Alan left strict instruction with Charlie of how long he was allowed to be up for and had bought a series of quick cook ready meals as he didn't want Charlie standing up for long periods of time cooking. Alan even joked that he has plenty of spies to keep an eye on Charlie to make sure he is behaving. Don and Charlie have a lovely meal cooked by Don of chicken (stuffed with pesto and cheese) with chips and vegetables. Charlie is surprised how wonderful a cook Don really is. Don asks Charlie if he wants a beer to go along with his chicken to which Charlie replies that Beer doesn't quite look the same after you have had a full Keg of it fall on your foot.


	12. Liam

Charlie was sitting in the Dining room of the Craftsmen working on the homework he was going to set his classes the next day and thinking about the dinner he was planning for Amita. He didn't have any work for Don to do at the moment which was good as it gave him more time to plan his Romantic night with Amita. He had just got the last question done of his 3rd set, when there was a knock on the door; Charlie hobbled over to the door and was greeted by Don trying to hold a wriggling baby.

"Charlie can you do me a huge favour?" asked Don before Charlie had truly got over the shock of the fact that Don was holding what looked like a baby boy judging by the _Mommy's Little Boy _t-shirt it was wearing.

"Erm….. Depends what it is? I have a lot of work to do and a meal to prepare for Amita and due to my earlier accident and subsequent trip to the ER, not as much time as I would like to do it in." replied Charlie trying to balance on his not braced leg suddenly realising that his crutch was still lying leaning against the table.

"Well you see Liam here needs someone to look after him for a couple of hours while we try to locate his grandparents in Virginia." responded Don

"Aren't you meant to let Child Services know or something I thought they did that sort of thing?"

"Well the problem is that his Dad is Joey Vitally, a big Crime Boss that we are trying to take down. He has major contacts and currently he thinks his wife and son were killed in a car accident this morning, when Joey was trying to avoid capture from the LAPD. If we give Liam here to Child Service they make a record of it, Joey will know that the LAPD lied and Liam wouldn't be safe. Our plan is that the grief of losing his family will cause Joey to be more reckless than usual and easier to catch when he makes a mistake." Replied Don "It would only be for a couple of hours, I promise I will be back before 6 to pick him up, giving you plenty of time to get ready for Amita. Anyway Dad will be home soon and he can help look after Liam."

"OK, can you bring him over to the table? I am slightly mobilely challenged at the moment." Charlie said trying to make it back over to the table without putting too much weight on his leg.

"Yeah I was going to ask what happened. I thought it was strange when Amita said you were working from home today." Don queried trying to not drop Liam who was making another bid for freedom.

"I was getting a bus this morning to get to a meeting downtown, I was the last person off and the bus pulled away slightly while I was getting off. Because I was thinking about the presentation I had to give I didn't really realise and I fell twisting my knee in the process."

"Is that the same knee you did during that charity football game?" Don interrupted

"Yeah luckily this time, it's not so bad and it isn't a complete tear." responded Charlie, settling into his chair again. "Though 3 hours in the ER still was not appreciated and really didn't help my day."

"Yeah you still ended up having surgery on it last time even though they were saying it would heal fine with just rest. Glad your check-up was with Dr Gladstone, he was great when I had all my baseball injuries. What they say this time?"

"They want to keep an eye on it because it is only a slight tear, the doctor said he doesn't think it will need surgically fixed but he wants to see me in a week so they can do some more tests. It may be they need to scope it to see if there is any hidden damage." Don was trying to think of a way of settling Liam down, when Charlie having finished his story looked up at his struggling brother. "There is a highchair in the garage I think left over from when we were little, Mom could never throw anything away. If you want I can hold him until you get it."

"OK, if you are sure." Don said placing the squirming boy on Charlie's lap then disappeared out to the garage.

Liam wouldn't stop squirming which kept jostling Charlie's leg slightly, he really hadn't thought this plan through as once again he hadn't forgotten his injured leg. Charlie wondered if maybe he was hungry and so breaking a piece of bread off of his sandwich he gave that to Liam who wolfed it down barely taking a bite. Charlie broke his half eaten sandwich into small bits and handed each in turn to the little boy. Don return shortly just as Liam was finishing his 5th bit. Don set up the chair next to Charlie and then lifted the boy into it.

"Right, I really need to be getting back. Will be back by 6 to pick him up, the director says we have until then to find Joey or the grandparents otherwise he is contacting the CPS."

Liam was fine until he finished the sandwich, but almost as soon as he was finished he started to whine, Charlie really hoped he didn't need changed as there was no way he could carry Liam and the changing bag safely to the bathroom as he could put very little weight on his leg. He doubted that Alan would like Charlie changing an infant on his dining room table even though technically it was Charlie's now. Charlie hoped that amusing the little boy would be enough to keep him quiet. But no matter what he tried nothing from the books in the bag to drawing paper to TV would quieten the little fella down. Charlie decided that he must need changed and tried to us his "big brain" to come up with a way of getting Liam and the supplies upstairs. He wondered whether the best way was to put the necessary supplies in his rucksack and then put that on his back which would leave him with one arm for the baby and one arm for his crutch. Charlie put a nappy, some wipes and cream in his rucksack and added a book as it was always good to have a tool of distraction when dealing with cranky children his parents had always said. Charlie managed to make it upstairs with no accidents and got into the bathroom. Realising that he didn't have a changing mat to put Liam on, he put Liam down on the counter and got an old towel out of the cupboard. Having got everything sorted he managed to get Liam changed without too many problems and got him all dressed back up with only slight juggling. Charlie hoped his dad would get home soon as an extra pair of hands would really help.

When they got back downstairs Charlie decided that the best thing was to bring his work over to the couch and then he could sit Liam on the couch where he would be more comfy and he could watch TV and Charlie could get some work done and still keep an eye on him. It also meant he could put his leg up which was starting to throb slightly with over-usage.

Charlie had just got everything settled when his phone rang, the caller ID told him it was his dad hopefully telling him he would be home soon.

"Hi Charlie, I was just calling to say that I won't be home when you get home as I have been invited to Stan's for dinner after the golf. I didn't want you to worry why I wasn't there." His dad said, dread filling Charlie as he thought that meant he was stuck struggling to look after Liam single handed.

"Erm… Dad I am at home already, so when do you think you will be back?" Charlie responded wondering why he had allowed Don to talk him into looking after the baby.

"Well I thought since you had Amita over tonight, I would stay probably until after 9. I could call you when I leave to give you a closer ETA if you want."

"Yeah that would be great, ok see you when you get home." Charlie hung up, he didn't want to make his dad come home just to help him that wouldn't be fair. Charlie just hoped that 6 o'clock came quickly.

Charlie and Liam managed to get on fairly well and Charlie managed to get all the homework assignments drawn up without too much interruption from Liam. He had managed to find a bottle of milk which he heated up for Liam about 5ish as he was getting whiney again. He did the whole testing it on your wrist thing you always see on TV. That had settled him back down again, Charlie was glad as it was less than an hour before Don would take Liam back and he could set about making Dinner for him and Amita and set the mood with some candles and set the table, even though it would be more difficult with his current handicap.

6 o'clock though came and went and still no sign of Don who had promised to be there before 6 giving Charlie an hour and ½ to get ready. Charlie thought he would give it till 6:30 and then he would call Don and if the worst came to the worst he could put Liam in the highchair in the kitchen while he cooked. He would of liked to have got changed before Amita got there but if there wasn't enough time then he was sure she wouldn't mind him in his jeans and slightly worn t-shirt (obviously he had been wearing different things to the meeting but when he got dropped home he had had to change as the trousers and jacket were muddy from when he had fallen off the bus). Today was really not going to plan. Charlie phoned Don at 6:30 but only got his answer machine, Charlie wondered if maybe hopefully he was in the car on his way to the Craftsmen so thought he would give it another 10 minutes and try again. Charlie's original plan of taking the highchair through to the kitchen had some slight flaws in it. He couldn't very safely leave Liam while he took it through and anyway how he was going to carry the fairly heavy highchair through he wasn't entirely sure. He wondered if he could maybe push it over to the door or something. Just as he was working out the angles and velocity needed, doing all the equations in his head there was a knock on the door hoping it was Don he called "Doors open,". In came Amita, who had decided to get there a bit early so she could give Charlie a hand with anything he still had to do. She swore she had walked into a mini-war zone with toys, books and paper scattered everywhere.

"Erm…. Amita what are you doing here, it can't be 7:30 already. CAN IT?" asked Charlie desperately.

"No don't worry it only 6:40ish, I'm early thought you might need help with making dinner. But it looks like dinner is the least of your worries. Is there something you aren't telling me, is there another woman I should know about." Joked Amita,

"No! I am looking after Liam as a massive favour to Don. Don was meant to be here by 6, but no my brother can't even keep one promise."

"Charlie is not that bad, its great practice for when we have our own kids." Teased Amita,

"It's more the knee and the baby put together that is the problem and the fact that I wanted to make tonight really special for you. You couldn't give me a hand could you?"

"Course, do you want me to watch the baby & tidy up or do you want me to make dinner?"

"Dinner won't take too long, so why don't we tidy up and then make dinner together, that will probably be more romantic anyway." Charlie replied, starting to pick up some of the toys.

Charlie tried his hardest to pick everything up but he kept over balancing trying to bend down. Obviously balancing on one leg and bending down is not a good combo. After laughing at Charlie after his 5th attempt to pick up the same toy mouse, Amita took pity on him and told him to keep an eye on the baby while she finishes up the tidying. After all the toys were back in the bag (who knew that one bag of toys could make such a mess), Amita carried the chair while Charlie carried the baby into the kitchen. They set him down so he could watch them make dinner whilst being far enough away from anything hot to not get hurt. Charlie cut some bread off the loaf to give to him as well as he was likely to be pretty hungry now, he refilled his bottle with milk and put it in the microwave to heat up as well. Amita comments that all he really needed was an extra pair of hands as he makes a great "Dad" really when he is not trying to juggle everything. They get all the ingredients out for their own dinner once they have the baby settled and make a wonderful dinner of chicken and mushroom stir fry with French bread and chocolate gateau (out of a box of course, Charlie isn't that great of a cook).

After Dinner they settle on the sofa to watch a Romantic Comedy with Liam lying asleep on Charlie's stomach. They had all fallen asleep when Alan and Don found them about 10 o'clock. They looked like the perfect wee family. Alan joked that maybe he wouldn't have to wait too long for grandkids after all. Don tells Alan that they had caught Joey it just took a little longer than expected and they are going to give little Liam to his grandparents in the morning. Don had got it cleared that Liam could stay with Don tonight as an emergency Foster parent type of thing as he had been checked for a previous case. The CPS had said as the grandparents were getting in about 4 in the morning it seemed unreasonable to wake a foster family up and then make them keep the child for only a few hours. Don had been surprised at this but wasn't going to argue with CPS if they were going to give him what he wanted. Alan said that Don might as well just stay there, as then there was no need to wake Liam up as the 3 "sleeping beauties" looked so cute asleep together.

Don came back down at 3:30 to pick little Liam up to take him to the airport to meet his grandparents and found that Amita, Charlie and Liam were still asleep pretty much the same way as they had been when he had left them a few hours earlier. Charlie woke up when Don lifted Liam off his chest,

"What time is it?" asked Charlie groggily

"Erm…..about 3:30 though I have been home for a while but there was no point in taking Liam back to mine when he was so comfy here." Replied Don

"So you taking him to meet his grandparents now?" asked Charlie not bothering to tease Don at being 9 hours late in "picking" Liam up.

"Yeap, they get in in about 30 minutes, all the paperwork has been done for them to take him on the next flight back to Petersburg Virginia."

"If you give me a sec, I want to come with you." Replied Charlie sounding a little more awake now

"You bonded with the wee guy have you?"

"Yeah he is very intelligent for his age, he was helping me set all the homework for my classes." Charlie joked,

Charlie picked up the changing bag while Don put Liam in a new car seat that CPS had provided for him. The old one had been damaged in the crash. Charlie did wonder how Don had brought Liam to him in the first place when he had no car seat but thought it was better not to ask. They got everything they needed into the car and Charlie managed to hobble over to the SUV and get into the passenger seat. He had never realised how high up the seat was before. Liam fell back asleep once the car started moving. They made good time to the airport and were in the arrivals meeting hall by the time that the Warners got there. They looked so happy to see their Grandson they just wished it hadn't been due to their daughter's death. The Warners said why didn't they all get a coffee or something then Don could tell them all the arrangements for the care of Liam.

Don explained to them that a social worker in Virginia would be assigned to their case and would make regular check-ups on them particularly for the first year, mainly just to make sure Liam was settling in fine and not becoming too much for them to handle or anything. The Warners said that thought they never thought they would be raising another child they wanted to give Lyndsay's baby the best chance he could get under the circumstances. They also said that if Charlie or Don wanted them to send pictures of Liam then they would be happy to as they had saved baby Liam and looked after him so well. Charlie who was currently holding Liam who had fallen asleep in Charlie's arms said that would be wonderful.

Once the flight number came up the brothers said goodbye to baby Liam and wished the boy and his grandparents a safe journey. The boys got back to the car and were back on their way home when Charlie asked Don if he thought that Charlie would make a good father. Don said that on today's evidence he thought that Charlie would make a fine if slightly eccentric father. Though he thought Mom would have wanted Charlie and Amita married and settled before they started popping out little Eppes.

3 months later

Charlie was sorting through the mail when he came across an envelope with writing he didn't recognise, tearing into it he found a long letter with a series of photos from what looked like a children's birthday party. The letter was obviously from the Warners telling Charlie how Baby Liam was settling in and the pictures seemed to be from his 1st birthday, which had been a fabulous success. There was a hilarious picture of Liam with icing all over his face. He seemed to have done more smashing than eating of his slice but looked like he was having fun doing it and isn't that the most important thing anyway.

Charlie put the picture of Liam into the frame that he had got last year for his birthday that he still hadn't used and put it pride of place on the mantelpiece between the picture of his Mom, Dad and Don at Don's graduation and the cartoon drawing of Don and Charlie as comic book characters that had been done for them earlier that year by Ross Moore. Charlie thought it looked perfect amongst the other pictures of his family as in a way the little boy though he had only been with Charlie for a few hours felt like a member of the family and Charlie now decided he couldn't wait to have kids of his own. He just hoped though that he wouldn't be in full working order for the whole baby stage as they were hard enough to look after without the added struggle of not having all 4 limbs useable.


	13. Macho

Alan was setting everything up for the family BBQ that he was hosting for his grandson's 4th birthday. Isaac had said that he wanted to have one of Granddad's special BBQs for his birthday. It was just going to be Charlie, Amita and their two girls (Aliyah and Rebekah) and Don, Robin and their two kids (Isaac and baby Pandora). Alan had been shopping the day before and bought all the necessary things to have a feast of food for the whole family. Don had phoned earlier in the day to ask if he could bring anything to the party and say that Isaac had had a lovely time with his friends and Robin's parents the previous day. Alan had told him that he had everything under control and to just bring their charming selves.

There was a knock on the door just as Alan was getting the BBQ heated up, he put the cover back down on the BBQ and went to open the door. He was greeted by a double hug from his 2 oldest granddaughters.

"Mommy is helping Daddy bring everything in, she said we could run ahead and give you your present." Aliyah told him excitedly handing him a bag that looked as if it contained a bottle of wine. Alan was surprised that Amita had trusted the 8 year old with the bottle then realised that it was plastic so it was unlikely to have done any damage if she had dropped it. He did think that these new plastic wine bottles were really clever.

"Thank You very much, does Mommy or Daddy need any help bringing everything in?" asked Alan as he let the two bubbly little girls passed him into the house.

"Maybe," called Aliyah over her shoulder as she helped her little sister with her shoes.

Just as he was about to go and see whether Charlie and Amita needed any help in presumable bringing in the rolls and the girls' toys. Amita arrived at the door loaded down with stuff. Alan thought he would have to have a word with Charlie making Amita carry so much in.

"Need a hand Amita?" asked Alan,

"Yeah that would be great" replied Amita handing him two almost identical backpacks except one had an A on it and the other a R. "Charlie is just coming."

Alan took the two backpacks putting them on the sofa and then went to check on the BBQ leaving the front door open so Charlie could get in. Amita was pulling everything out of her bags onto the table when Alan got outside. He helped her unload everything that he had asked her to bring. Alan checked round to make sure his granddaughters were not in the way before he checked on the BBQ and saw his youngest son struggling with a few bags. Once Charlie dropped them on the table Alan realised why he had been struggling he seemed to have his full arm in plaster (which was covered in children's drawings and signatures) and in a black sling.

"What happened Son? You didn't tell me you had hurt yourself!" Alan asked surprised, Charlie had not mentioned anything about any kind of accident.

"Erm I broke my arm, not a very interesting story. Don't worry it looks worse than it is." Charlie replied turning more and more red.

Just then Don and his family arrived, "The door was open," said Don turning and seeing Charlie's arm, "What happened Chuck?"

"It's nothing….." started Charlie, but was interrupted by his youngest daughter,

"Was this the story we weren't allowed to tell Granddad and Uncle Donny, Daddy?" asked Rebekah confused

"What story darling?" asked Don bending down to the 5 year old's height.

"Daddy said we couldn't tell you as you would make fun of him Uncle Donny." Replied Rebekah, trying not to laugh at the secret she was trying to keep.

"Oh just tell them Charlie, they will find out sooner or later," laughed Amita, bringing out the jug of lemonade.

"Oh fine! I shattered my arm during that arm wrestling comp at Cal Sci,"

"You broke…..your arm…..arm wrestling….you're joking…right Chuck?" said Don between uncontrollable fits of laughter. "Not very Macho really is it? Who were you arm wrestling Mike Tyson?"

"No but he was a former Marine" replied Charlie sheepishly, "It happens more often that you would have thought. People breaking their arm, arm wrestling I mean. It is all to do with the phenomenal twisting forces the arm goes under while arm wrestling. It is not so much the strength of the opponent. Only about ¼ of the cases have had a stronger opponent." Trying to reclaim some dignity by showing he wasn't the only one this happened to.

"Still hilarious that you managed to require major surgery to pin the arm back together after arm wrestling" laughed Don still not able to keep his laughter at bay over how funny he thought Charlie's predicament was.

Robin came out of the house carrying Pandora with one arm and a bowl of potato salad with the other. Charlie took the bowl from her in an attempt to stop the humiliation. Pandora tried to wriggle out of her mother's grasp. Robin decided to put her down on the grass wondering if maybe she wanted to crawl about.

Alan tried to distract Don away from tormenting his brother by getting him to BBQ the burgers, ribs and sausages on the grill. Charlie decided to get all the kids over to one bit of the garden so that Isaac could open all his presents. Amita looked over at her husband and got worried when she noticed him adjusting the sling and looking in a great deal of pain. It had been quite funny when Charlie had phoned from the ER on Thursday, asking if she could come. Though it got bad pretty quickly when she had to try to keep two little girls occupied and stop them from further injuring their daddy. After surgery to repair the shattered bones, Charlie had been released to the wonderful care of his wife. Amita biggest problem yesterday had been trying to keep her husband from trying to use his broken arm to write out equations for what he was meant to be teaching his sophomore class first period on Monday. She tried to convince him that he had to be patient and that he would be allowed to write and do normal things but not for the next few weeks.

Amita went over to make sure that Charlie's arm didn't get knocked, he wasn't due painkillers for another 2 hours and she didn't want him to be in pain. It had been hard enough with two little kids who didn't quite realise that Daddy couldn't join in their games it would be even worse with 4. Amita sent Aliyah and Rebekah to grab the bags of pressies for their cousin.

Once they had returned, Aliyah with a large green bag with a monster on it and Rebekah with a slightly smaller bag that she had picked out which looked like the night sky with a large rocket on it, Amita picked up Pandora (to keep her out of trouble) and told Isaac to open his presents. Robin came over (bringing Alan's presents for Isaac with her) to sit with them on the picnic blanket to see her son open his lovely presents from his Auntie and Uncle and Granddad. Aliyah proudly told Isaac that the ones in the rocket bag were from her and Rebekah and the other bag was from her Mommy and Daddy.

Having torn the paper off at a phenomenal rate, Isaac had a large pile of presents in front of him. There was:

A game for him to play in the bath which had people shaped targets(like those at a shooting range) and a water pistol to shoot them with (so he could be like his daddy and shoot the bad guys)

A star shaped box full of kids bath stuff which smelled like apples and strawberries (his two favourite fruits)

There was also a large cookie that said Happy 4th Birthday Isaac in green icing.

A little fox in a red box (he had told his Uncle Charlie that was all he wanted for his birthday like the Dr Seuss book. Charlie and Amita hadn't realised how hard it would be to get.)

A box full of Star Trek and Star wars action figures. (They had been Charlie's and he decided to give them to his nephew)

A LA Angels shirt which had Eppes and a 4 on the back

Just as Isaac was finishing expecting all the presents when Don declared the BBQ open for business. The 3 older kids rushed over to the table to grab everything they wanted before their parents could tell them off that they had too much on their plate or to be more healthy in their choices. In the confusion of rushing bodies Charlie got knocked over before he could get out of the way. Of course due to Murphy's Law he fell on his sore arm. The screech of pain stopped all the children dead, none of them knew what to do or really what had happened. Amita rushed past them to help Charlie up and guided him over to one of the chair sitting next to the picnic blanket.

"Do you need anything Charlie?" Amita asked the worry evident on her face.

"Errrr…..A glass of water…would be great and maybe some Ibuprofen….I haven't had that yet have I" trying to talk coherently through the grunts of pain.

Everyone had crowded round them to make sure Charlie was ok.

"No you haven't had that yet today, practically everything else in our medicine cabinet. I think you were going to have the kid's cough medicine next." Amita tried to joke to try to take Charlie's mind of his arm.

"Chuck I'll get you some," Don said as he rushed off to grab some out of the kitchen along with the glass of water which he spilled all over himself in his hurry to get back. He handed it to Charlie nearly spilling over him as well. "Did you really take everything out of the medicine cabinet?"

"Thanks Don, no I think Amita was joking to try to cheer me up." Replied Charlie, he was rubbing his arm in an attempt to alleviate the pain.

"Sorry Daddy," Aliyah said trying not to cry that she had hurt her Daddy.

"It's fine darling," pulling his daughter in for a one armed hug, "it was an accident, don't worry."

They settle back to having the lovely BBQ that Alan and Don had prepared. They mocked Charlie's attempt at trying to eat with his left hand. They thought the past few days would have given him enough practice to not look like a complete idiot but no he still looked like a baby foal trying to walk.

Just as Amita and Robin were bringing out the Jelly and Ice-Cream, Don's cell phone started ringing. Don answered the phone and discovered they had a new case at work.

"Don it's Sunday and it's your Son's birthday, can't you take one day off work?" asked Robin

"Sorry Darling, really important case has come up, the ME is really stumped on this one. She just got out of hospital this morning and now she is dead."

Turning to Isaac "Really sorry Buddy, Daddy has to go catch the Bad Guys. I'll make it up to you."

"It is ok Daddy, promise you will make Cheesy Swirls tomorrow for Dinner and I'll forgive you Daddy. Love you Daddy. See you when you get home" Isaac said hugging his daddy.

"If you need my help in anyway Don just call." Interjected Charlie, but his comment was met with a "Look" from Amita.

"Charlie, you just got out the hospital, the Doctor told you to rest not solve crimes," scolded Amita.

"I'll call you if I need you Charlie," responded Don, kissing Robin and then left.

Don arrived at the Office and was greeted by the new agent Mike Hunt, who had only just started working at the LA Office last week. Don wasn't sure how Mike had managed to swing going from Quantico to Don's Elite Team. Though Mike seemed to be a hard worker (which Don respected) and brought fresh ideas to the Team.

"It seems a strange case Boss, the victim Melanie Clark was 22, she was in Hospital to have Key Hole surgery to remove a grumbling appendix. The report says that her vitals were good and she was discharged. Her Aunt phoned her to see if she was coming over and went over to her apartment when she did not get an answer. She found Melanie dead. This was yesterday, the ME said that she died of major internal bleeding, it seems the clip on the blood vessel was not properly attached and came off" finished Mike

"Sounds a simple case of malpractice, not checking that the blood vessels were clipped off properly. Open and shut case, why have we got the case?"

"It seems to be more to it as the video shows the doctor checking that they are properly clipped."

"Have we checked the equipment to make sure it has not been tampered with?" asked Don

"That was where I was just going to go before you arrived but David said to wait until you arrived and then you could come as well as he felt I was not ready yet to go on my own." Said Mike somehow all without taking a breath.

"Don't be so self-conscious, you can take the lead on these interviews, I will just supervise."

When they investigated the equipment at the hospital they discovered that there was damage to some of the equipment which had been used to conduct the Keyhole surgery. The found out that the instruments came in packs of 3 and only one of this new batch (the faulty batch) in the fatal surgery meaning that new other surgeries could end fatally. The discovered that the next surgery that Dr Stewart had performed was on a College star quarterback called Jason Polleski. He had been already released. They decided that they would have to hope he would be survive until they could get help to him.

Don drove to Jason's house, when they arrived Mike rushed in closely followed by Don. They found Jason collapsed on the floor. Unconscious but still alive, Mike went outside to tell the ambulance that Jason needed immediate help (they had decided to have an ambulance follow them encase. The medics with the help of the Doctor (surgeon) that had come along as well encase his services were needed. They got Jason stable enough that he could be transferred back to hospital for life saving surgery.

Don realised that they had only accounted for 2 out of 3 of the faulty sets of equipment. They would have to go back to the hospital to find the last set before anyone else's life was put in danger. While Mike searched for the last set of faulty equipment, Don phoned the lab to get the results on the set of equipment that had been used in Melanie's surgery. The lab said that the equipment had been deliberately tampered with to cause massive internal bleeding in the patient.

Don phoned his team (after getting off the phone to the lab) to look through to see if anyone at the hospital had a link to Melanie. Hopefully they would be able to find a connection that might lead to who had tampered with the equipment.

Mike came over to Don shortly afterwards to tell him that the last set of equipment had been found and that a little 4 year old boy's life had been saved in the process as the faulty equipment was found on the tray about to be used to operate on him. Don sent Mike to find out Jason's condition and see if there was any news on the matter.

Don's phoned Buzzed at that point,

"Eppes!"

"Don its David, we can't find any links between Melanie and anyone at the hospital apart from the obvious fact that she was in hospital there. We did find though a connection between one of the nurses and the second victim Jason. Jason was involved in a car crash 4 years ago with 4 friends from school. They were driving home from a party. The driver was drunk as were all the people in the car. Jason was the only one that survived. Simon Whittaker was another passenger in the car he was killed instantaneously, his mother works at the hospital as a nurse. She vocally blamed Jason for letting Simon get in the car. Simon being younger looked up to Jason apparently according to the reports. Maybe she saw this as a way to get revenge on the boy see holds responsible for her son's death. Possibly Melanie was a victim of circumstance." Reported David,

"I'll talk to the nurse see what I can find out, will also look to see if maybe the schedules were changed and Jason was meant to be the first surgery today or something." Replied Don

Just as Don had finished his conversation with David, Mike came back in looking very excited.

"Melanie wasn't meant to be the first surgery today. The doctors got worried when she spiked a fever that her appendix was going to burst before they could operate and as Jason's surgery could be put back a couple of hours, Melanie went first. Maybe she wasn't the intended victim, maybe it was Jason. "

"That was what David and I were just talking about, he says there is a nurse who might hold a grunge against Jason due to a car accident that killed her son."

"We should go interview her then, shouldn't we" doubting himself again.

"Sounds a good idea, you take the lead" in an attempt to try to boost his confidence. Don could always help if need be.

They went in search of the nurse hoping they had just solved the case.

The nurse confessed when they confronted her. She had hoped it would all be put down to malpractice or faulty equipment. She had only meant for the equipment to be used for the one surgery. She was going to get rid of it before anyone else found out or was hurt. But when the schedule was changed she panicked and thought the case would be stronger for it to be malpractice if it was more than one case. She thought no-one would suspect her if it wasn't only Jason who was "injured". It had got out of hand she never meant for anyone apart from Jason to die she had meant to keep Melanie in until she started showing signs of the tampering. The problem had been that she had been called away to a cardiac arrest so couldn't make sure Melanie wasn't discharged.

They arrested the nurse and made their way back to the office, when they arrived David offered to do Don's paperwork so Don could get back home and spend as much time as he had left with his son on his birthday.

It was just after 7 when Don got home, he hoped Robin would let Isaac stay up more than just till 7:30 (his usual bedtime). When he entered the Living Room, Robin was sitting on the sofa with Isaac Curled up next to her and they were reading a book called _First Snow, _which Isaac loved as you didn't get snow in California. Don sat down next to them while they finished the story. He didn't want to interrupt as he knew it was Isaac Favourite Book.

When they were finished Isaac noticed that his Daddy was home and smothered him in a hug. He was so glad his daddy had got home before he had to go to bed. He was very proud of his Daddy getting all the Bad guys but he did sometimes wish that his Daddy wasn't so busy and they could play together more. Mummy and Pandora were ok but they were girls and girls weren't quite as good as boys in his opinion. (He was only 4 so he was allowed to not know that his mummy would be very annoyed if she knew he thought like that. She thought boys and girls were equally good). Mummy agreed that since it was still light outside they could go play catch in the yard for a wee while but then it would be time for Isaac to go to bed. She secretly hoped it might tire Isaac out making him easier to put to bed. He had been so hyper all day (understandably) and she feared he would be a nightmare to try to put down tonight.

Don found their gloves and a suitably soft ball so that Isaac would hurt his hand when he caught it (or threw it at Daddy's face as he had done by accident with Uncle Charlie last time they played. Charlie's nose still looked a bit crooked even now.) They played for nearly an hour, talking about what Isaac was doing at preschool and about the new girl in his class called Helene who was from France. Isaac really liked the new girl and hoped they could be friends. Don loved the fact he had got to spend time just with Isaac finding out what was going on. He loved his job but he hated the fact that he missed so much in his kids' lives. He vowed to try as hard as he could to make it home more for meal times and to spend any free moment he got with Robin and the Kids. He wouldn't get these years back.

THE END

_**A/N I know the ending is a bit soppy but I have been feeling really down recently and so writing a soppy happy ending really cheered me up. Sorry if it ruined the story for anyone.**_


End file.
